


A Practical Guide to Demon Keeping

by theicesculpture



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, Asexuality, Catholicism, Christianity, Crack Taken Seriously, Demon!Frank, Drama, Frank is a demon, Gen, Gerard is an art student, Humor, Humour, Mikey looks after Gerard, Mr & Mrs Way, No pairings - Freeform, Ray just wants to be an electrician, Religion, Student!Gerard, Supernatural - Freeform, jamia, not Frerard, only a (very) fleeting hint of frerard, pet demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:05:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theicesculpture/pseuds/theicesculpture
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikey isn't happy when he discovers that not only has Gerard summoned a demon but that Gerard also intends on keeping it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Consider Informing Who It May Concern

Gerard was mildly surprised to learn that it had taken three weeks for Mikey to discover the demon living underneath his bed. Not that Gerard had left a massive amount to chance - he was fairly certain that the demon wouldn't harm Mikey… Or at least wouldn't be able to harm him anyway.

Mikey had neglected to question the sudden appearance of various bottles of holy water that had materialized in their room with no adequate explanation. In fairness, stranger things had happened since sharing a room with Gerard and he had long since learned that it was better for his mental well-being if he stopped questioning it. He had merely shrugged at the line of salt that could just about be seen peeking out from underneath the edge of the bottom bunk and mistakenly assumed that the increasingly fouler smell was just another case of Gerard refusing to wash his clothing and/or himself.

It was only by coincidence that he discovered the demon. It occurred shortly after dropping a sock down by the edge of the bunk closest to the wall. Normally Mikey would have proceeded with caution but this was one of the remaining few socks that didn't look as if it had been trying to euthanize itself by digesting its own fabric of existence. He blamed his actions a result of sheer recklessness and his habitual thinking of _fuck it_. The hair that his hand made contact with was enough to give Mikey quite a shock as well as the person that the hair belonged to. Instead of doing the rational and sane thing - like yelping and snatching his hand away for instance - he found himself continuing to feel the hair just to check whether it was actually real.

It was.

And so was the demon it belonged to.

***

After a long talk with Gerard it transpired that the demon's presence resulted from a recent tangent that Gerard's latest comic had taken. Mikey wasn't entirely sure what that meant but he assumed that the plot involved some sort of hellish ritual and Gerard had always been into theatrics. Yes, the demon was real, yes Gerard should have told Mikey that he'd been sleeping over an actual demon for the past three weeks and no, Mikey shouldn't refer to the demon as the demon. Apparently his name was Frank.

It was at this point that any doubts Mikey had about how intact Gerard's sanity was for the first time in living memory, completely resolved. As in concluding that it was not intact in the slightest.

"A demon." Mikey paced along the hallway outside of their room. "An actual fucking demon."

Gerard's eyes were alight.

"I know." He breathed. "Do you want to meet him?"

Not for the first time that day, Mikey made a questionable decision based on nothing much but _fuck it_. 

And that was how Mikey found himself lying on the floor awkwardly introducing himself to the stranger who'd been living underneath his bed for the best part of a month.

***

Whenever it was suggested that house training a demon wasn't the safest (or sanest) idea and that they should probably figure out a way to send him back to hell or wherever he crawled out from Gerard would shake his head adamantly. Gerard happened to be greatly pleased that he had summoned this particular demon and not one that seemed intent of destroying humanity or something. Frank was a quiet and a very easy to look after house guest. If anything, Gerard was a little disappointed that he had so far discovered little about him. But then again it seemed fair to assume that hell was a difficult place to learn to open up to people.

It wasn't easy, balancing demon-keeping with maintaining a commendable grade in art school but with Mikey on board he had hopes for the whole process to run significantly smoother.

The beginning had been anything but smooth. A gaping black swirling vortex of terror had opened up with no warning whatsoever - Gerard hadn't even finished trying to read out the passage yet - and then the thing spat out something humanoid looking with an equal lack of consideration.

The thing scarpered off to the darkest most hidden area of the room and after a moment of initial shock Gerard decided that under the bed was as good a place as any to keep it hidden..  
It took an emergency trip to the nearest store and church before Gerard felt reasonably safe and it took considerably longer until he discovered that the only thing that Frank would consent to eating was raw meat. Since he had effectively trapped the demon in a salt circle under a bed it seemed only fair to supply him with a bucket (did demons need to take shits? He still didn't know, Frank seemed intent of not letting Gerard retrieve the bucket for some reason) and risked using a hosepipe as a make-shift shower as the week two anniversary of Frank's arrival approached.

Gerard quickly learned that the demon was not a fan of light, being clean or loud noises. During the early days the demon would press itself as hard as possible against the wall so that Gerard could see nothing but his back, the demon would recoil at the sight of something entering his newly acquired lair (particularly if that something had Gerard's arm attached to it) and it refused to speak. Gerard considered that maybe it was massively ethnocentric to assume that they all spoke English in hell. However, Gerard was persistent and after not so long the demon was desensitized enough to his presence that the two of them could establish eye contact without the risk of one of them panicking and trying their dammed hardest to seep into the wall via osmosis. 

The demon certainly looked human. A little unclean and bedraggled but still very much human. As it happened, the demon did in fact speak English but would only consider responding if he considered the questions not too personal and if Gerard spoke in the softest of whispers. The demon replying with 'Frank' when Gerard asked his name was the first word that Gerard heard him say and in all honesty it raised far more questions than it answered. For example, how does a demon come to acquire an American accent? Why was that the only question he chose to answer so far? And more to the point - what sort of name was Frank for a demon anyway?

***

"I'm not comfortable sleeping above a demon, Gerard." Mikey stated in what he assumed to be out of ear range of Frank.

"Why not? You have been doing it for ages already."

"Yes but I wasn't aware that I was and that changes things a bit."

Gerard huffed.

"Your room isn't safe."

"I'll take the risk of sleeping through a damp and long ongoing redecoration project than above a demon."

"I'll tell him you said that."

"Sure you will. I'll still help you do your research and stuff. Even though you don't deserve it - you know, for not telling me anything in the first place. When were you going to tell me?"

"I... I planned to. Eventually. I wanted to get Frank to relax more so he could make a good first impression. Also I wasn't a hundred percent sure he wasn't a figment of my imagination. And I was having trouble figuring out how exactly to word that I'd sort of accidentally summoned a demon and that he'll be living with us indefinitely."

"I can see why that wouldn't be easy but c'mon Gerard." Mikey did the thing where he dragged out the second syllable of the word Gerard that he only did when he was either on the extreme end of exasperated or feeling particularly affectionate. Gerard guessed that it wasn’t the latter.

"Sorry Mikes."

Mikey snorted.

"This is the most ridiculous situation I've ever been in."

"Yeah, me too."

After a few higher pitched than what would be considered normal giggles, the brothers tried to make a room (not just any room but what was supposed to be Mikey's bedroom) littered with stray ladders, broken sections of wall and a permanent damp smell livable in. It was a difficult task which was why Mikey had been residing in Gerard's room for so long in the first place. They had naively believed that the room would have been fixed within a week or two but things just kept coming up that meant that sorting it out kept getting delayed further to the point where Mikey staying in Gerard’s room started feeling less like a very much extended sleepover and more like a room that belonged to the two of them. There was no chance of fitting a mattress in Mikey's old room so an air bed was dragged down from the attic (Gerard loved any excuse to go into the attic - he'd been begging for years to be allowed to live up there but was forbidden) and Mikey elected to keep the rest of his stuff in Gerard's room still.

"If it gets too much, let me know."

Mikey was unsure of whether Gerard was referring to Mikey's own literal health hazard of a bedroom or the demon situation they had going on but he felt a swell of gratitude towards his older brother. Even if his elder sibling chose questionable times to morph into the concerned and caring older brother archetype.

"Will do."

Mikey spent a well needed evening alone reading Gerard's crumbling copy of The Lesser Key of Solomon. He'd had plenty of experience handling books due to his part time job but with this particular book there was genuine fear that every time he turned a page it would fall out of the spine. Trust Gerard to find a book containing exact instructions on how to summon demons inside an innocent local charity shop. Surely the book could have sold for quite a bit of money - why would someone leave it lying around in a charity shop? Most of the text seemed irrelevant but then a significant portion of the words used in the book were archaic. He found an abundance of rituals, one for each demon or spirity thing, complete with diagrams and step by step guides. In an odd turn of events the summoning rituals were the most comprehensible section of the book, meaning that a modern reader would be able to perform the rituals without a problem but still have little knowledge of what the fuck they were actually doing. Or more importantly: how to deal with it. Something repeatedly cropped up about seventy two demons (none of them were named Frank) and for a book on demonology it held frustratingly little practical advice.

He fell asleep with vague thoughts about selling the book once they had got rid of the demon. He’d call it compensation money for the stress.

***

Due to the eggy stench that even with the window flung open as wide as possible still continued to reek, Gerard was finding it increasingly more difficult to sleep. Admittedly, there was only one window in his bedroom and it was tiny but if having it open all night was enough to make him shiver unless he was cocooned in his blankets then it should be enough to at least diffuse some of the smell. For once, Gerard was certain that the smell was not him. Gerard knew his stench; it was sweat and cigarettes and only when he put off showering for a few days too many. Not fucking egg.

Gerard clambered down the bunk ladder and couldn't help but feel slightly foolish for wearing skeleton pajamas in the presence of a demon.

"Frank?"

Something stirred.

When he knelt he saw nothing but a shifting shadow of blackness but then he could see the glisten of reflecting eye whites. Gerard struggled for the words to politely request for a demon to do sort out his body odor.

"I can't sleep."

"Neither can I."

Was it the shadows casting illusions or was that a mischievous grin on Frank's face? Did he just crack a joke? There was no trace of humor in his voice but there seemed to be amused crinkles around his eyes.

Gerard sat cross legged on the carpet.

"Do you need to sleep?" It was no effort to keep his voice hushed at this time of night.

"Think so. At some point."

It was the longest response that Gerard had gotten out of Frank. Gerard paused for a calculated second and then proceeded to continue with no calculation at all. "Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?" Frank definitely seemed more talkative at night.

Gerard faltered.

"Well..." He said. "I asked first."

"You summoned Ipos so there was just an open portal. I was sent through."

Gerard had no idea what that was supposed to mean but they were on a roll now and he didn’t want to get off-piste whilst acquiring such vital information.

"Why you then?"

"Punishment."

"For what?"

"No, no. You haven't answered my question."

"What? Oh..." Gerard scratched his head and tried but failed to reply with a better response than: "I live here."

"'Course."

"Sorry to disappoint, my story isn't anywhere near as interesting as yours."

Frank shrugged.

"Only 'cause hell and demons are foreign to you."

"How foreign are Earth and humans to you?"

"It's been a while."

Frank shifted the pillow Gerard had supplied him with, exposing the view of his arm.

"Nice ink." Gerard was looking at a tattoo that looked much like a web between Frank's thumb and index finger.

Frank's first clenched the fabric.

"Didn't know they did those in hell." Gerard pushed.

"They don't."

Frank refused to say another word that night.


	2. Judge Your Judgment... And Then Your Judgment of That

In an accumulating series of extreme lapses in judgment, it turned out that Gerard mistook the antisocial nature of a demon for something akin to timidness. It all seemed like a spectacularly arrogant mistake to make in retrospect. As Mikey had told him not once but on four separate occasions: the demon was not in the least bit scared of humans, he'd just rather keep to himself.

Every one of Frank's behaviors could be attributed to demons having heightened senses - Frank's apparent phobia of loud noises (Gerard liked to believe his voice was too loud rather than too intolerable) and bright light for instance. If Gerard had been underground (or wherever hell is supposed to be) for centuries he figured his eyes would be somewhat sensitive to light too.

"Maybe hell isn't such a bad place," Gerard mused, "if they send demons to Earth as a punishment."

"Depends on whether you're an optimist or pessimist." Mikey replied.

"If hell is better than here - I'm off."

"Oh, you mean when we find out how to send the demon back you're going to jump after him?"

"I'll have to think about it a bit more first before committing myself."

"Not sure how kindly they'll take to humans gate-crashing hell."

"Sounds risky." Gerard gave a solemn nod and Mikey hid a growing grin beneath his hand. It was more fun than reading even though strictly speaking Gerard should be the one doing if not all then at least the majority of the research.

"Have you stopped speaking to Frank like he's a startled animal yet?" Mikey asked.

"Hmph."

"Jokes aside - he's a demon, Gerard. Don't let your guard down. Maybe he wants to come across like that so you'll slip up at some point. Who knows what he's planning."

"Or if he's planning anything."

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. We won't be able to know unless it's too late."

Gerard reached into the pocket of his baggy jeans.

"Look." He held up a small crucifix, a few sashays of salt (were those stolen from McDonald's?) and what looked like a miniature perfume container.

"I'm glad to see you're taking precautions."

"Have you found anything else out?"

"Not for definite. Some demons supposedly only exist as spirits and the only physical forms they have are basically them possessing people."

"You can't just drop that into a conversation."

"There's a lot of conflicting writings, I can't say for definite."

"What happens to the people, you know, left inside?"

"Doesn't really say. Implied that they're still semi-conscious for a while but sort of fade out."

"Shit." Gerard wrapped his hands tighter around his mug

***

That week had been eventful yet uneventful simultaneously. Mrs. Way wanted to know what happened to all the meat in the freezer and no one in the family would own up to scoffing the lot of it.

"I'm not angry!" She insisted. "I just need to know how much meat to tell your Dad to buy next time he does the shopping."

After receiving no answer she took more drastic measures.

"I'm going to leave this pen and paper right here," she plonked them on the table, "and I'll walk out of the room. I expect to see an answer when I come back in."

Upon her return, the capital blocked letters on the paper spelled 'probably a lot'. Mrs Way raised an eyebrow but neglected to comment.

***

Gerard had spent the past two weeks despising the Introduction To Digital Art course and not much else. Mikey, on the other hand, somehow kept up to date with all his homework on top of all the extra research for demon related subjects. The weekend had seen them to Belleville library and back to the charity shop with little success.

"I've thought of a list..." Mikey confessed.

"A list of what?" Gerard had an irritating habit of speaking into his coffee rather than over it.

"All the potential things that could go wrong."

Gerard pulled a face.

"Since when were you such a pessimist? You're young, you shouldn't worry as much as you do."

"You've put us in a worrying situation. At least one of us should be worrying. Do you know how little it would take to break the salt circle? A gust of wind would do it. Or you falling over. Or someone vacuum cleaning it. Or-"

"All right, all right. I'll glue it down or something."

"You'll glue it down." Mikey spoke slowly to emphasize each word in hope that Gerard would realize how ridiculous they sounded. "Forgetting any practical issues with gluing grains of salt to a carpet - what if you need to break the circle at some point to send him back?"

"Then I'll have to improvise."

Mikey didn't want to think about what that could involve. As it happened, Gerard's solution was a good fit to the problem. Well, as good a fit as could be expected. Being an art student, he had a healthy amount of respect for PVA after all. He'd be able to peel it off if he needed to.

"Also," Mikey hastened to add, "if Frank's a powerful demon a salt circle won't be enough to hold him."

"Good news then. If he was powerful he'd have escaped already."

"Probably."

***

The most eventful part of the week was when Gerard returned home from the train station fully intending to lie down and never think about digital art again only to discover that there was already somebody (well, somebody else apart from Frank or Mikey) occupying his room.

"Gerard, this is Ray."

Gerard barely managed a weak nod.

"His Dad's a priest." Mikey explained. "Ray knows how to perform exorcisms."

That woke Gerard up.

"What? No. No, I don't want to kill Frank or something-"

"Exorcisms don't kill, Gerard. They send the spirit back to hell."

Ray's arms were crossed and his eyes kept darting around the room and flicking between the brothers like watching a tennis match. If anything, how uncomfortable Ray looked infuriated Gerard more. What did he expect if he invaded other people's homes? Especially if they happened to be housing a demon? Rainbows, sunshine and waves of gratitude?

If Gerard had been more alert he would have noticed that Ray looked uncomfortable before the conversation began. Ray wanted to be an electrician; he liked fixing actual things rather than things that may or may not exist in a metaphysical sense. He wanted to deal with things that were indisputably real. Just last week he'd had to break the news to his Dad that he didn't want to be a priest because he wasn't even sure whether God existed and his Dad wasn't anywhere close to angry. Instead his eyes were full of pity. So, yes, the current turn of events was entirely unanticipated and potentially a make or break deal with the whole religion thing. Ray had good reason to be nervous. Also, he had it by a reliable source that he was in the same room as a demon. If not a demon then two people out to pull a prank on him or two people sharing the same delusion. That should make any rational person nervous.

"Mikey you should have told me before involving somebody else!"

"What - because it might be relevant? It's not like I'm putting you in any possible danger, is it? If I was then I'd have the decency to let you kn-"

"I said I was sorry! I thought we were over this!"

"Strangely enough, no I don't think I am over there being a demon living with my family.

"So go ahead and invite in a complete stranger, let him stand in my room and decide whether or not exorcizing my demon is a good idea."

" _Your_ demon? You have some ownership over him now? You think you can control him?"

"We have options..." Ray pointed out. Or rather muttered in a brief second pause between arguments.

"Good," Mikey said with stiffness in his voice, "let's have a calm discussion about what can be done."

Gerard rubbed his temples.

Before any of the discussing aspect started Ray checked that there was actually a demon underneath the bed. There was somebody there at least, but whether he was a demon was yet to be determined. Ray did not rule out the possibility that this was all an elaborate prank and they'd just sneaked in a friend of theirs underneath the bunk. The sulfur smell would have had to have been particularly well planned out though and it would probably last for days after disposing of any stink bombs.

Oh well, there was only one way to find out. Ray reached for a small bottle of holy water on the desk.

"Did you steal this from church?" He blurted. After receiving no response but a scowl from Gerard and an apologetic shrug from Mikey, he unscrewed the cap and splashed some in the direction of the body underneath the bed. When it made contact it sounded like hissing acid.

"Oh shit." Ray's stunned silence was broken by the clattering of the glass bottle as it smashed against the floor. "Sorry," Ray said, "I'm clumsy enough normally never mind when I'm in shock."

"Don't piss him off, Ray." Mikey warned.

Once again, Gerard made a somewhat arrogant assumption that they were referring to him rather than the demon.

***

The discussion took place in the Way's back yard which Gerard was certain wouldn't in any way help Frank trust them. For some reason both Ray and Mikey seemed skeptical when Gerard insisted that they had no reason to believe that Frank was a bad guy.

"He's a demon," Mikey stated, "of course he's a bad guy."

"Isn't that a little racist?"

"Nope, just common sense."

Gerard pointed out that there was no evidence of Frank actually doing anything immoral, that Frank had in fact been highly cooperative and that all of their doubts were founded by nothing but blind prejudice.

Mikey opened his mouth then closed it again. Ray eyed the gate up as if planning an escape route, should this escalate any further. Which was odd because the situation had long since escalated far enough.

It was a convenient thing that Ray was raised to have the patience that would be required of a marathon snail racer because it took far longer than it should have done for the brothers to (temporarily) stop squabbling so Ray could explain what their options were. He was careful not to press having an exorcism too much (he didn't want to immediately start another argument) and talked about various protective markings, the supposed powers that demons possessed, in what ways they could be bound to their human summoners. All in all, Ray was impressed. No one listening would have so much as suspected he had no practical nor previous experience handling demons.

"What do you mean, bound?" It was the first civil thing that Gerard had said to Ray.

"Well it depends on the nature of the ritual as well as the individual human and demon."

"Go on."

"Sometimes the demon is sworn to obey the commands of the human. Sometimes they have to stay within a certain distance of each other or they'll experience physical pain. Sometimes there's a physic connection. It depends on the power of the person who did the summoning. By the sounds of it any sort of bond is rarely formed."

"Why haven't I heard of any of that before?" Mikey demanded.

"It is in scripture. Just not modern scripture. Probably to minimalize the number of people trying to take control of demons and use them as slaves or something."

"Right. But Gerard didn't summon the demon he'd set the ritual out for, he just got one that was sent through."

Ray frowned.

"Frank was sent through as a punishment." Gerard elaborated.

"That's weird, I haven't heard of that one before..."

Gerard sighed. It was a shame that after Mikey acquiring what seemed like a (relatively) well informed source, all of the information that Ray held could potentially just not apply to their situation.

"Anything else we should know?" Mikey queried.

"Demons can gain power in a number of ways. Like by holding some sort of sigil of the devil, basking in blood, negative human emotions..."

"Fuck!"

Mikey leapt to his feet and charged to Gerard's room. Ray, not understanding the specifics of the emergency but still gathering that there was one, was not far behind. Gerard trudged in behind them.

"GERARD!" This must have been the second time in a decade that Gerard had heard Mikey yell. Shit. "...Oh gross..."


	3. Do Not Expect a Demon to Be a Well Behaved House Guest

So maybe Gerard shouldn't have fed the demon raw meat.

The problem with raw meat it that it has a tendency to be more bloody than cooked meat and the problem with feeding a demon something bloody is that the demon gets stronger. How was Gerard supposed to know? It's not as if in any of the films people were courteous enough to make sure their local demon didn't go hungry. If they all died of the same stupid mistake in the films then Gerard would have learned and not done said stupid mistake. Like when you hear a noise when you're home alone, you never ask who's there because shortly afterwards someone will jump out and attempt to murder you. It's just common sense.

On the (potentially only) positive side, the three of them did learn something about demon bodily functions: demons can take shits after long enough.

"Right there." Gerard grumbled. "On my carpet. He took a shit on my carpet."

"Bigger picture Gerard! He broke the circle! We don't know where the fuck he is! We lost our demon - he could be fucking anywhere!"

"Had to break the circle with a shit, didn't he. Why couldn't he just put the bucket on the salt line? Does plastic not work to break a salt circle? But demonic shit does. Fucking twisted."

Mikey shook Gerard by the shoulders.

"We need to find him before he hurts someone!"

"Or takes a shit on someone else's carpet."

They - or rather Mikey - elected Ray to drive and left Gerard to go on foot and search for Frank. Gerard was clearly in no fit state to drive, he kept muttering something about 'the ultimate fuck you' every few seconds and compulsively digging his nails into his hands.

"Glad you've got a clear head, Ray," Mikey murmured from the passenger seat "it's refreshing to be around."  
"I'm probably in shock. Might have a breakdown in a few hours."

"And you thought I was just a quiet kid with a normal life."

Laughter burst out of Ray.

Mikey waited but Ray didn't seem to stopping laughing anytime soon.

"Uh, Ray?"

The guys face cheeks were looking pastier by the second but the laughter did not cease.

"Ray, you're sounding kind of manic."

The laughter got higher pitched and then-

"Ray, I want you to pull over as soon as you can. I think you were a bit optimistic about how long you had until a breakdown."

***

As the evening grew later Gerard's anxiety was added to the compound of his anger. There were equally if not more dangerous things to encounter than a demon patrolling this area of New Jersey during the night. Gerard was beginning to wish that he had the safety of being surrounded by the metal walls of a car. Wasn't someone shot on this street a few weeks ago? What was Gerard supposed to do if he actually found the demon? All he had was a minuscule amount of holy water, salt and a necklace with a cross on it. More worryingly, that was three times more than Ray and Mikey had on them.

"We're fucked." It was a statement of fact. It applied to the past, present and future as well as just being a generic summary of the current predicament.

As of yet the park, pond and convenience store had been crossed off Gerard's mental list of places the demon could have gotten to. What was he expecting? To find Frank experiencing the joys of a swing? Purchasing a packet of crisps? Maybe Gerard should have started thinking more in terms of if he wanted to cause mass destruction, where would he go? Mikey had warned him about the demon after all. Gerard shouldn't have been so surprised that a demon had displayed an appalling level of rudeness.  
Feeling a lack of clarity in thought, Gerard took to sitting on the curb. Grim, yes but it needed to be done. He'd checked for gum and broken glass before sitting down, he'd be fine. Well, free from litter related injuries anyway. Demon related injuries on the other hand...

Darkness. Quiet. Access to meat. That's all Frank seemed to require. What fulfilled all of Frank's criteria for the perfect lair? Gerard struggled to think of anywhere bar a large garbage can outside the back of a fast food restaurant.

With a lack of any better ideas, he checked the back of McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Burger King and-

This was hopeless.

If Frank had grabbed some cash before his great escape he could be tens of miles away by now. Maybe he figured out how to get on the bus or made his way to the train station. Maybe he'd never find Frank again and he'd unleashed something monstrous on the world.

If Frank went on a killing spree, it would all be on Gerard.

What the fuck was going through his mind when he decided to test out what an actual ritual would be like? It wasn't as if any potential readers of his comic would be able to tell a legit ritual from a non-legit one. To make matters worse, it wasn't even all that essential for the plot. He was in over his head. He needed more people on board to help him search but what was he supposed to do? Contact the police? Ask the neighbors whether they had seen a feral looking male recently? Put out missing demon posters on lamp posts? And then the most ridiculous thought of all: _Mikey's going to be so mad at me._ This time Gerard was able to admit that he deserved to be angry. How many people were now in danger all because of Gerard's stupid mistakes? _I know, let's summon a demon. Sounds like fun. Sure, why not?_

Gerard was power walking on auto-pilot, searching through obscure back alleys and housing estates, not realizing that the path he was on happened to be a road.

HONK.

"Fuck!"

In the split second after his angry thoughts were interrupted by the baring car horn Gerard managed to be dazzled by its headlights, realize that he was about to be hit by a car and somehow had time to regret that his last words before he died might be 'fuck'.

Everything went black.

Gerard felt nothing. And then-

"Gerard?" Definitely Mikey's voice.

A car door slamming. Footsteps. A hand on his arm.

"Jesus, Gerard."

Shit, was he hurt that badly?

Ah... It was black because Gerard's eyes had sealed themselves shut. Adrenaline started catching up with him and he could hear his blood pulsing around his head. He opened his eyes and quickly regretted it; the car headlights were somehow more blinding than before but on the bright side (no pun intended) they were a meter or so in front of him which meant that he can't have been hit.

"Oh." Gerard uttered whilst Mikey steered him into one of the back seats.

***

Gerard had no recollection of how exactly he got home, nor how he got into bed but after a particularly confusing Saturday morning wake up he noticed that a few things more than just his memory were out of place. For one, the shit was gone and no trace of it was left behind. And secondly there was a note sitting outside of the circle.

'Thank you for your hospitality,' it read, 'also sorry about the shit. Don't take it personally.'

Don't take it personally? He knew that in hell the rules of social etiquette would be far different but it still seemed like basic common decency not to shit on someone's carpet.

Gerard had a pleasant daydream about the hissing noise that the holy water made as it made contact with Frank's skin.

"Mikey!"

A bedraggled looking Mikey emerged a few minutes later.

"What."

Mikey, even after his coffee, was not a morning person.

"He left a note."

Mikey pushed his glasses further up his noise and examined the piece of paper.

"Weirdly polite. Apart from the whole taking a shit on your carpet thing. Did he clean that up?"

"Well I didn't so he must have done."

"Would have been nice if he told us where he was planning on going."

"Talking of plans," Mikey started, "me and Ray were talking last night. After I had to calm him down when you almost made him run you over. He volunteered to stake out the railway station and keep a lookout for Frank."

"Frank could be in another state by now."

"No, we worked it out. Frank must have escaped when we were all in the back yard. The earliest he would have been able to get to the railway station by foot would be after half ten-ish and that's only if he knew exactly where he was going. There's only one train that leaves after that time so the odds are low that he was able to get on it in time. Also, he's a demon. I don't think he'd necessarily know how the public transport systems work. So Ray agreed to get up at six and stake out the station."

Gerard's eyebrows flew up.

"Good of him." He mumbled.

"That's not all."

If Gerard's eyebrows could be raised any higher, they would have done so but alas, eyebrows have limits and can only be raised so far without the ability to meander upwards and off the surface of the head.

"Ray's giving this girl a call. He says she's Wiccan and might be able to help us find him."

Gerard nodded.

It seemed appropriate for them both to ring in sick to work that day, considering the escaped demon that may or may not be intent on wreaking havoc on the world. There was a good chance that the note was a detergent - what sort of evil entity would clean up after itself and leave an apology note? Maybe it wanted them to think that finding him wasn't an immediate emergency, thus leaving him free to do whatever he wanted. Whatever that was was yet to be established.

The futility of driving around and hoping to bump into Frank (not literally... probably) was blatant but they refused to let that stop them wasting their morning. It wasn't as if they had any better ideas.

***

They returned to find a stranger leaning against their wall.

"Mikey and Gerard?"

"Yes?" They replied in unison.

"Jamia." She said with a brief smile and held out her hand.

"Are you Ray's...contact?" Mikey queried, shaking her hand. Gerard followed suit.

"That's one way of putting it. You going to let me in? I don't see the point of standing idle if a demon-" she raised an eyebrow at the word, "is on the loose."  
It was an understatement to say that Jamia spoke quickly and was guilty of frequent topic hopping. By the time they had arrived in Gerard's room she had verbalized that she thought Ray was joking when he said that there was an escaped demon, discussed common misconceptions about Wicca and how she supposed to be in a hokey match this afternoon but this sounded indefinitely more fun.

"There's never any guarantees with casting spells," she warned, placing her rucksack on the floor and digging through it, "it's kind of like sending a prayer - you might get help or you might get nothing." She pulled out a volume so old Gerard could smell the musk from where he was standing and she started flicking through the pages. 

"A locator spell should do it, don't you think?"

Gerard and Mikey exchanged a blank look.

"Sure, sounds good."

"Tell me all you know about Frank." She demanded.

It was difficult to explain without feeling like a bit of an idiot that the demon liked to live in conditions similar to that of fungi, had a nice selection of tattoos and was weirdly apologetic after appalling acts of rudeness.

"And he's quiet." Gerard finished off. "He doesn't like loud noises."

"Some terrifying demon, huh?"

"He took a shit on my floor to break the salt circle."

"Classy." Jamia had a way of speaking that made only the context of her utterances the clue to whether she was speaking sarcastically rather than intonation.

"And then he cleaned it up and wrote a note apologizing."

"Doesn't sound like typical demonic behavior. Can you move the bunk bed? I might as well use the circle under it."

After lots of grunting noises and not a lot of movement (movement of the bed that was) Jamia joined in and the bed shifted two meters to the right with marginally less sweating and cursing. Mikey stuffed his sock into his pocket with a fond smile, with all the demon commotion he'd forgotten about dropping it down there. Gerard kicked at various wrappers, clothing and unidentifiable objects that would be better off remaining unidentified.

"I'll need to you to either be quiet or leave the room." Jamia announced, stepping into the circle and then faltering. "Is the salt glued down? You know what? I don't want to hear it."

She'd left her rucksack just outside of the perimeters, reached in and brought out four candles. Mikey had turned away, deciding that although Jamia didn't come across as a person liable to feeling self-conscious he still should give her some privacy. Gerard watched her whisper something out of range of his hearing every time she lit one of the differently colored candles.

She'd filled a bowl of water whilst the Ways were struggling to muster the strength to move the bed and brought that inside the circle, closing her eyes and gently swirling the water with the tips of her fingers. Gerard still couldn't make out what she was whispering but it seemed to have a different tone somehow.

The stirring motion reminded Gerard of a harp player's fingers and there was something hypnotic about the repetitive movements in water.

"He's close..." Jamia murmured and continued making the sort of coaxing motion in the liquid. She opened her eyes and peered into the water of the bowl.  
Mikey had been sat for long enough that his bladder was beginning to feel uncomfortably full but he didn't dare to move. He knew nothing of Wicca or how spells were supposed to work but this felt like a crucial point. Mikey took great caution in shifting his weight on the bed without the mattress squeaking and was pleasantly surprised when he succeeded.

Minutes past.

Jamia looked up.

"Do you guys have an attic?"

Gerard's mouth fell open.

"You're fucking joking."


	4. A Demon Is Not To Be Confused With a Toddler (Although They Have Many Similarities)

Frank had made quite the nest up in the attic.

The demon lay starfished out on top of various old curtains and bags of old clothes, surrounded by a fort of labeled cardboard boxes and trashed furniture. He’d been watching how passing time affected the colors that drifted in through the skylight. His favorite period was when the sky was not quite black but a deep dark blue and the scattered stars had just about become visible.

It did not take long before Frank learned that he disliked cloudy days.

Closing his eyes for a few seconds eased the raw soreness a little. Maybe this was why people slept. That, and it would be nice to turn off consciousness for a while.

BANG. BANG.

Frank jerked upright.

The hatch in the floor sprang open and Gerard, in an uncharacteristically athletic feat of strength, hauled himself through it. A heavy sigh left Frank's mouth as he gave a mental goodbye to the view out of the skylight.

"FRANK!"

The demon flinched.

"You've been here all along?"

Gerard's voice sounded sort of strangled for some reason.

"Yes."

Where else was there for Frank to go?

"You... You..." Gerard struggled for an insult with worse implications than various ways of affiliating Frank with genitalia. "I am so angry with you right now."

Frank's eyes widened.

"I cleaned it up." His voice was soft and pleading. "And apologized."

"That makes it okay then." Gerard hoped that sarcasm was a well understood concept in hell. "You disappeared off the face of the planet. Do you know how long it took to find you?"

"I don't."

"Almost forty eight hours."

Frank cocked his head to the side. That didn't sound too bad. But then basically being immortal does skew your perception of time.

"Forty eight hours of non-stop worrying, panicking..."

Wait a minute... Did that mean they were worried about-

"...listening to news to see if there'd been any attacks, any deaths..."

Of course not. Frank was an idiot for so much as beginning to even think along those lines.

"And all along you were cozied up here in my attic!"

Gerard's fists clenched.

"Sorry."

Frank's apology did nothing to relieve the tension.

A hand came out of the gap in the floor, quickly followed by a head. Frank felt no recognition for the girl and she observed him with rapidly fading curiosity.

"Oh." She said.

"What?" Frank could hear another muffled voice say somewhere below the floor.

"I wasn't expecting him to look so normal." 

"Jamia, get down." The voice - Mikey's voice - said without conviction.

"He doesn't even have black eyes or anything."

She continued watching with mounting disinterest.

"Jamia."

"All right, all right. It was a bit of a disappointment anyway."

She climbed back down the ladder.

"Why," Gerard asked, "did you sneak off up here?"

"It was claustrophobic under there." Everything - Frank’s posture, his tone - screamed defensive.

"Well you could have just asked!"

Really? That seemed to be far too simple. Besides, it just seemed like it was pushing luck for a slave to ask such a large favor of his master, especially when his master had been so lenient so far. Frank knew he should have escaped somewhere further away but it struck him as genius to hide so close. They would be expecting to find him miles away, never suspecting that he’d have hidden through a hatch in their ceiling - who'd think to look up there?

"I could have?"

"Yes!" Gerard held his face in his hands. "Next time you want something, you have to ask first."

Frank felt the heat of a first command.

"Yes." Frank said.

"Also the bucket was for taking shits in. Don't shit on the floor again."

"Yes."

The heat of the commands was fading but he could still feel their weight. Frank considered asking whether he could stay here, he didn't want to go back. Not under that bed, with all the discarded socks and long forgotten bits of food, not to that place where he couldn't so much as sit up... The longer he put it off the more it felt as if his skin was being held over a growing flame.

Frank despised slave bonds.

"Can I stay up here?"

The pain stopped.

"I need to think."

Gerard ran a hand through his hair and salted a circle around the hatch in the floor on his way out.  
Truth be told, when Gerard said that he needed to think, what he truly meant was that he needed Mikey to think. Mikey had always been the left-brained thinker, the one with the calm demeanor and the more rational one of the two. Mikey would know what to do; his help had been invaluable so far.

***

"He wants to stay up there, Mikey."

"Well," Mikey said, "it'll be more convenient than your room."

There was no doubting the truth of Mikey's words (when had Mikey grown up so much?) but Gerard could not shake the niggling sense of doubt.

"I don't want to reward him for taking a shit on my carpet though."

Mikey laughed and Gerard's older brother fondness made itself quiet.

"Make it clear that you're letting him stay up there because _you_ want him up there and find some other way to punish him for the shit thing."

Gerard had forgotten about Jamia and the sound her voice behind him made him jump.

"How do I punish a demon?"

The more of the muffled conversation that Frank heard seeping up through the floors the more dread tied itself in a tighter knot in his stomach. What were they going to do? Make him bathe in holy water? Make him eat purified salt? Oh shit, the burning sensation in his arms had started up again.

Frank crawled towards the catch but couldn't open it because of that stupid fucking salt line. He struggled to think of way of verbalizing his wants without it causing more anger to be directed at him but the burning was intensifying and making it increasingly difficult to think.

"Can you not punish me?"

Below the attic Mikey mouthed the word 'what' at Gerard.

"Um... No, I think you deserve it?" Gerard was the one who finally broke the silence.

Why hadn't the burning stopped? Oh right, that might be why.

"Also," Frank said, "I would very much appreciate a glass of water."

Mikey's mouth fell open.

"Funny." Gerard ground his teeth together.

The burning had stopped. Frank examined his unmarked forearms and frowned.

It was odd, Gerard's behavior. In Frank's previous experience of masters, they'd at least use their slaves to do something remotely useful by using the powers that varied according to which demon they'd summoned. It would have taken a ridiculously powerful summoner to be able to summon Ipos - or rather be able to conjure a portal opening in hell that would have summoned Ipos into a slave bond successfully, had Ipos not gotten sick of being summoned for normal use centuries ago and figured out some clever way of immunizing himself from being summoned that he kept strictly to himself. What did Gerard want with the knowledge of all of the past, present and future anyway? Obviously the information would be invaluable not just to humans but to any being but Gerard didn't seem particularly angered or disappointed that instead of getting an omniscient demon as his slave he'd gotten Frank instead. At best Frank was an incompetent telekinetic who also happened to be talented at humiliating saints.

In fact, Gerard didn't even seem ambitious with his intentions. Mildly curious, yes but not ambitious.

If Frank didn't know any better, he would have assumed that Gerard didn't know what he was doing.

The uncertainty of Gerard's intentions was unsettling. So was the fact that every time Frank so much as had a wish he was forced to either withstand a large amount of  
pain or blurt out whatever it was that he wanted. Talking of which, the pain was beginning to prickle again.

"Can I be released from the bo-"

"For fucks sake Frank!" Gerard yelled. "I didn't mean you have to ask for literally every single tiny thing you want!"

Frank would not call a slave bond a tiny thing but was relieved all the same that Gerard had contradicted himself, thus breaking his original command. No more burning unless Frank broke a different command of his. Excellent. What would have been more excellent would be if there was no slave bond at all but Frank supposed that he couldn’t have everything.

The muttering below the floorboards was at a volume low enough that Frank could make out the tone but not the words. It went on for a while until eventually Gerard clambered back up the ladder.

"Firstly," Gerard said, "yes you can stay up here. Because it'll be easier. We want you to clean stuff as punishment."

Frank had to firmly press his lips together to stop himself from laughing in relief. That was it? Cleaning?

"Deal."

"There's more. No one can know that you're here apart from me, Mikey, Ray and Jamia."

Uh oh. Might be a bit late for that.

"I'll be quiet."

Gerard nodded.

"We don't want you to hurt anyone."

Frank took his turn to nod.

"Erm... That's all."

Frank grinned. This was too easy! All he had to do was clean up a little and he was provided with a home, food (although he probably wouldn't be given more any time soon at least), entertainment and his master barely gave any commands. The ones that he had given were hardly strenuous or psychologically damaging anyway. Frank could get used to this.

***

With the day almost over, the Ways saw Jamia off at the door. Mrs. Way rounded the corner of the hallway with a disconcerting grin.

"So Mikey," she purred, "when are you going to introduce me to your new boyfriend?"

"What?" Mikey spat out.

Mikey's parents had been waiting years for the day that Mikey brought home his first girlfriend. Due to his asexuality and lack of luck with the few people he had experienced a romantic attraction to, the day never came and his parents had been forced to draw their own conclusions. Mikey's Mom, apparently, was bizarrely delighted to have 'deduced' that one of her children was a closeted and quietly raging homosexual.

"He was here yesterday." Mikey had never seen his Mom's eyes sparkle so brightly. "In the kitchen."

"Ray? No, Ray's just a friend. I'm not-"

"Is Ray the one with the hair?"

"Yeah the big hair but he's not-"

"I didn't mean him. Barely saw your guy though; he scuttled out so fast when he saw me... Carrying loads of cleaning stuff, bless him. You've got yourself a good guy there, Mikey - he was obviously doing it all for you."

Oh god.

"Obviously." Mikey repeated weakly. The futility of trying to dissuade his Mom on the matter was unequivocal. He got the 'eighteen and still hasn't brought a partner for us to meet' speech (his Mom was especially careful about being gender non-specific) what seemed like every other week which alternated with the 'you'll meet the right person one day' speech. It was depressing.

"You'll have to bring him over for a meal sometime."

"Mmm..."

Mrs. Way winked.

"Donald will be a bit concerned about the tattoos but he'll warm up to him, I'm sure. Can I ask what his name is?"

"Bye Mom."

"Fine, have it your way Mikey. I'll find out soon enough."

***

"I can't believe this." Mikey sighed to Gerard.

"I know - she mistook a demon for her youngest son's boyfriend."

Mikey dug his face into his hands.

"She's so determined for me to have a boyfriend that she's becoming delusional. No male is safe from-"

A small knock at the front door turned them back around.

"Did Jamia remember her rucksack?"

They opened the door.

"No sign of him, guys..." Ray announced instead of a greeting.

Both Ways froze.

"Shit. Ray, I'm so sorry," Mikey stammered, "we found the demon this morning."

"Oh." Ray said.

"I mean I’m not sorry that we found him, obviously. We should have called you - oh no wait, you wouldn't be able to answer your house phone if you were at the station. I should have found you and spared you all that time. I'm really sorry dude."

"Where did you find him?"

"... In our attic."

If Ray had the necessary coordination to raise one singular eyebrow he would have done so but his facial genetic make up had not served him well in that respect.

"I want to hear the whole story, you can't not let me in after the day I've had. Also I think you at least owe me pizza for letting me wait around all day."


	5. Keep Your Demon Occupied (It Gives Them Less Time to Plot to Sabotage You)

What was the point? Frank liked the attic precisely the way it was - he found the unorganized piles of boxed memories and forgotten projects oddly charming and happened to hold great admiration for the spiraling networks of polygons to be found in cobwebs. It seemed a shame to destroy such laborious and architectural displays of nature.

Be that as it may, by being sentenced to tidy and clean the entirety of the attic, Frank received the opportunity to dig through family memorabilia. If not being marginally more interesting than the changing colors of the sky (Frank's attention span had grown weary of the sky only changing from yellow tinged gray to a gray tinged yellow during the daytime at an incredibly slow rate) then at least he might discover something he could work with. Some traumatic incident, something he could use for blackmail, some great underlining weakness... Not that Frank was planning anything nefarious as such; he just wanted to have something he could use as insurance should he have need of it. Which seemed like a likely possibility, given the hold that Gerard currently had on him.

As of yet, all Frank had found was a selection of old records, family photo albums and boxes of children's toys. The plastic swords were non-lethal, the records were impractical (although the various monsters in the artwork were the opposite of uninspiring) and Frank failed to see how he could possibly twist the vast quantity of photographs of Gerard and Mikey in the bath to his advantage.

Frank tried in vain to understand why a person would take so many photographs of the same mundane event involving two small children, water and a ridiculous amount of bubbles. The photo albums were labeled by year and Frank examined every single one of them as well as the notes that made an occasional appearance. By doing so, he got to watch them grow up through the snapshots and eyes of another person; Frank saw them learning to ride bikes, the epic lightsaber battle that they had after seeing Star Wars at the cinema for the first time, birthdays, Halloween and Christmas celebrations...

The documentation of their lives grew sparser as the years went on and the focus became less about the two children and more about the event and family members and friends surrounding it. Frank learned that an elderly relative of the family had a recurring habit of drinking too much at Christmas, that the same relative would always give Gerard and Mikey an art kit or something similar as a present and that without warning she stopped appearing in any photographs at all.

By the end of his search, Frank had nothing of use except for incriminating and embarrassing photos (why exactly was Gerard prancing around onstage in green tights?) and the presumed knowledge that the Ways' grandmother (at least that's who he presumed it was) was no longer around for whatever reason.

It was better than absolutely nothing but there was still an abundance of room for improvement.

Frank missed the days when his only job was to come up with plots to humiliate saints. It was the best job he ever had.

***

It irritated Gerard more than anything that Frank's morality (or lack of morality as the case could be) was still as ambiguous as whether or not aliens exist. Scratch that, that was a bad example. The vast majority of the human race struggles to accept that in a universe so large, this planet is the only one with the necessary conditions present to evolve life whilst simultaneously refusing to believe that the existence of aliens is anything but absurd.

The existence of aliens was entirely plausible according to Gerard. He'd buy the occasional zine that a fellow student at SVA would stand outside selling. That kid had something of a reputation. It was no wonder when you read the number of crackpot conspiracy theories he published - not that Gerard bought into all of the theories but he'd rather keep an open mind. Nothing else explained that story in the news about how police had found a shipment containing 273 human skulls. Gerard was skeptical that the answer was somehow related to Bill Clinton's double life as a narwhal poacher though. Still, it was an interesting read.

Gerard often fantasized about having some sort of double life that no one would discover until after his death and then he remembered that keeping a demon hidden in his house sort of counted.

Him and Mikey had spent the previous day experimenting with salt and concluding that in fact PVA was the best way of making the circle as unbreakable as possible. They'd gotten through four giant tubs of salt in the attic, one circle going around the perimeter and another miniature one going around the hatch.

Of course, should either of Gerard's parents need anything in the attic they'd be screwed. Frank did not have the power to turn invisible; Gerard had asked him. Frank also did not have the power to erase memories nor camouflage seamlessly into his surroundings (Gerard had asked him a great deal of questions) but then again, there was nothing to stop Frank from lying. If Frank had the means to erase Gerard's memories effectively, there was no way for Gerard to know. The whole thing put him on edge.  
Not as much on edge as the thought of how much trouble he'd be in from his Mom if she was to find out...

It wasn't as if Gerard could simply buy a padlock for the hatch without it raising questions, or do anything to prevent his parents from entering the attic without it raising questions for that matter. Maybe Gerard could use his Mom's delusions to his advantage and claim that Frank, Mikey's secret boyfriend, had fallen out with his parents and needed a place to stay for a few days. That could work. Mikey would not be happy about it but it was the only solution that Gerard could think of even if it was just a temporary one.

***

Frank had been laboring for hours. Dust had been released into the air, spiders had been preyed on and all the objects with the potential to be used against the Ways had been thoroughly examined. Frank was bored. He'd spent the past half hour sat in a corner, summoning numerous toys to fly into his outstretched hand after deciding that if he couldn't do anything fun he might as well do something productive and work on his (somewhat embarrassingly poor) telekinetic skills.

It had to be when he was surrounded by a pile of stuffed toys and plastic dinosaurs that Mikey decided to check up on him.

Frank dropped his hand, deciding that it was best if no one was aware of how lowly skilled he was.

"Been entertaining yourself?" Mikey nodded at the pile.

"Yes."

"... Good."

That was it. Mikey left rather abruptly, leaving Frank to wonder about what the purpose of that visit was. To check that he hadn't escaped? It wasn't as if Mikey bothered with small talk.

Frank shrugged and made a lightsaber fly into his hand.

By the end of the evening Frank's antics had made the attic go from a room that wouldn't be all that out of place in an interior design magazine (if there was one tailored to attics of course) to worse than it had been before Frank started tidying.

***

The Ways had a takeaway that evening and were so engrossed in eating that nobody spoke a word until the end result of demolishing all known sources of food encased in polystyrene had been completed.

"You know," Mr. Way said, "that you're banned from the attic, don't you Gerard?"

"Yes..." Gerard felt unease spread in his gut. Or maybe that was just indigestion.

"Because I've been hearing noises up there, like somebody shuffling around."

Gerard tried to subtly kick Mikey under the table but needn't have bothered as his brother spoke before Gerard's foot found contact.

"I was looking for a video up there earlier."

"Yes, I heard that."

"You did?" Mikey exclaimed and since Gerard's legs were already in Mikey's general vicinity he figured that he might as well kick Mikey for his lack of discretion.

"Heard you getting back from school and heading up there... The noises I've been hearing-" he narrowed his eyes at Gerard, "have been happening at about three in the morning."

Ah. It was common knowledge that three in the morning was Gerard's optimum time of the day. Or night. But the point was that his brain and creativity seemed to flow in the late hours of the night and he had something of a reputation for being too inspired and getting carried away with whatever he was writing or drawing to notice something as insignificant as the time.

Gerard, on the brink of being about to vehemently deny everything, then realized that the truth being discovered would get him into far more trouble than being accused of staying up later than he should be and spending time in an area of the house that had been out of bounds to him since the age of eight. So he did the only reasonable thing he could do and said nothing.

"He's twenty one now, Donald," Mrs. Way berated lightly, "he can stay up to whatever ridiculous time he likes."

"Oh I know that," Mr. Way agreed, "I just wanted to ask him to be quiet about it. I don't appreciate being woken up at ridiculous-o-clock in the morning."

"Okay." Gerard put on an innocent smile and contemplated numerous ways of getting the demon to shut the fuck up before he'd end up in an uncomfortably incriminating situation.

***

Gerard entered the attic minutes later, prepared and quite looking forward to doing a lot of angry venomous whispering only to find that his mouth was rendered uncooperative and instead of obeying him it just hung open instead.

The place was tidy! Actually tidy! And clean - did he mention clean!

Also the sight of a demon wearing what appeared to be an old curtain draped around him fashioned like a toga was enough to give anyone a shock.

"Nice." Gerard whispered, unsure whether he himself was referring to the demon's new get up or the attic's new make-over.

Frank nodded in agreement. It hadn't taken long (both the toga and re-tidying the attic).

Coming to think of it, Gerard had never questioned the clothing that Frank must have been wearing when he was summoned. Surely Gerard would have noticed if the demon wasn't wearing any clothing but for the life of him, Gerard couldn't recall what that clothing was. How does clothing and retail work in hell? Fuck knows.

"So," Gerard put off his scolding since the demon had actually done a good job and elected to ask politely rather than make threats he wasn't certain he could carry out, "I don't care how loud you are during the day time when no one's here but you need to be really quiet at night. And whenever there are people in the house who don't know that you're here you need to be quiet too. Can you do that?"

Frank nodded.

"Sweet."

Gerard could feel his grudge about the whole shit on his carpet thing being rapidly taken over by curiosity mingled with the beginnings of gratitude.

"What's with the toga?"

Frank looked downwards and frowned.

"Oh, you mean the curtain. I needed a change, I'd been wearing the same clothes for a month."

"Well..." Gerard wasn't sure whether he was going to regret the offer in future but decided to go ahead and make it anyway. "You can always borrow clothes from me or Mikey if you ask."

Nothing would be a good fit but it would surely be a more secure and stable fit than a curtain. Gerard hoped that Frank was wearing something underneath that curtain and that he didn't make any sudden movements.

"I appreciate the offer."

Like so many of Frank's responses, it neglected to answer any unsaid questions.

"So, um... Do you have enough to do up here?"

Frank hesitated, unsure of whether the honest answer would sentence him to more cleaning. If Gerard was being completely honest, his motives for asking were far from selfless. A bored demon left unsupervised seemed like an excellent beginning to a disaster.

"There are lots of things up here." Frank eventually stated.

The thought of asking what demons did as hobbies and in their spare time caused Gerard to falter.

"There's lots of paper up here, and drawing stuff, plenty of toys-" (did Gerard really just offer to let Frank play with his childhood stuffed and plastic toys?) "-my old acoustic, I can let you play records as long as no one's around..."

"I want to hear this one." Frank reached behind him and handed it to Gerard. For no reason other than the artwork, it had captured Frank's attention. The blues and blacks of the thundering sky clashed with the flames in the foreground and the odd creature in red, grinning manically and making a grabbing gesture, was at the very center of the piece. The heart of the composition, the one part that was the center of gravity for all of the other elements, was a mother fucking skeleton who may or may not have obscure fire wielding powers. And for that reason alone Frank wanted to hear whatever the record had to say.

"The Number of the Beast." Gerard recalled and something akin to nostalgia for his thirteen year old self hit him. "Figures." He muttered.


	6. Read Your Demon's Resume

Frank wasn't sure what to do with the paper nor with the multitude of pens that came along with it. If he had the technical drawing skill to graffiti his face on to every incarnation of some sort of demon/devil/monster on the covers of Gerard's records then he would have done. Maybe. It seemed a little ungrateful but then again, demons weren't supposed to be polite. He'd get odd looks.

Honestly, where was he supposed to fit? He'd gotten kicked out of hell for being too polite and 'nicey-nicey' and on Earth he was the spawn of Satan himself. Frank wasn't, he knew exactly who his parents were and they were perfectly respectable demons thank you very much.

Being a demon had been a breeze for the first century or so, even fun. That was before the general human population stopped producing saints so Frank was, in essence, made redundant. The lack of saints caused his one and only honed skill to be rendered useless and due a lack of any other skills, he was placed at the equivalent of the bottom of the corporate ladder, only this ladder was situated in nothing but darkness and flame.

He'd served as a kindling gatherer, a fire-keeper, fire-fighter and as a fire-controller for decades until it was determined that he was adept and experienced enough with fire to be promoted to a higher skilled and competitively sorted out position; a torturer.

When working hours started, a queue of soon to be victims had already formed outside Frank's delegated lair-space. Frank was supplied with a far higher quantity and quality of metallic pointed objects than he knew what to do with. The first victim sentenced to his punishment had their hands chained and was sent into his chamber. Frank had gingerly poked at her face a little with one of the long spiked spears until it became apparent to both of the occupants of the room that Frank didn't have it in him to cause any actual damage. The demon opposite Frank had winked and impressed Frank with her acting skills through the medium of convincing pained screams. Before the end of their session she reached into the gap where the wall met the floor and used the dust and dirt to create the illusion of bruising. It was an utterly unconvincing illusion but as long as she kept away from open flame and no one looked too closely it would have to do.

The next demon was sent in and a similar routine began to emerge - although Frank often found himself having to gesture wildly at the soot before they'd get the hint. Before long, word spread among the demons waiting to be punished (punished beyond eternal damnation that was) and Frank struggled to explain to the guards why so many of the prisoners were specifically requesting him as their torturer.

And so Frank was investigated further and fired. The firing bit he could live with, the bit about how he was an embarrassment to demon-kind seemed a bit harsh but the mention of his own awaiting punishment caused him to worry.

Just as Marbas had finished scolding Frank, a vortex had opened up behind him.

"That'll be another attempt to summon Ipos." Marbas sighed. Without warning, his weary and contemptuous expression had shot into something far more disconcerting: one of cunning and calculation. The fact that Marbas had the ability to see personalities as easily as others saw each other's physical forms only added to the discomfort.   
He peered through the hole with an expression equal in horror as disgust. "Revoltingly noble, incorruptible, amicable-"

Frank was hit with the realization that Marbas's powers must have been able to extend through the vortex...

"Yes..." Marbas finished and burst into sudden laughter. "Ooh and look at that! It's a slave bond too. Yes, any bond to this unbearable humanitarian will be punishment enough for any demon."

Before Frank so much as had a chance to utter a word of protest he was thrown by an unseen force into oblivion.

Except that as it turned out, the other end of oblivion was a young adult's bedroom.

***

Over the course of a week's worth of evenings, Gerard had commissioned himself a project: educate Frank. Frank was sorely lacking knowledge in music (just when was the last time Frank had been on Earth? Gerard was surprised that he understood what a record was but didn't know who The Beatles were) and comics. He'd unsuccessfully attempted to try to get Frank to draw or learn the guitar or at least something creative so that Frank could channel all his pent up demon rage or whatever in to but no such luck. It was a shame really, Gerard had been eager to see whether Frank's scribblings would resemble something fucking terrifying and whether Frank's demonic side would allow him to learn new skills super quickly. If Gerard was being completely honest with himself, he just wanted a sneak glimpse of hell and liked the idea of a band with a surprise demon for a guitarist.

Turned out that Frank was something of a bookworm and the only abnormal and above average human level skill that Frank seemed to possess was being a speedy reader. Disappointing, but there are worse and less practical skills to be had.

All in all, Frank was pretty content. His daily routine consisted of listening to records, reading, and watching the sky. Gerard had given no commands with the exception of a few 'hey listen to this' incidents which Frank was relatively happy to fulfill. The music was a conflicting activity - on one hand it frustrated him because it felt close to something that he might be into but on the other he had no idea how to get closer to the kind of music he wanted. If it was angrier maybe, and faster.  
Mikey's routine consisted of going to school and doing whatever the fuck he could to avoid the demon living in their attic.

"He can't live here indefinitely!" He'd insisted to Gerard. Gerard had said and done nothing about the problem. Just what was Gerard waiting for? The demon to be discovered by one of their parents?

Mikey was struggling to find a solution that didn't involve an exorcism. It wasn't as if Frank would ever be able to sustain himself (assuming he was fit to be unleashed on the world outside of their house) - the guy had no social security number, no history, no ID...

_Gerard's problem,_ Mikey had concluded repeatedly whenever he found his thoughts straying in the hellish direction of the contents of their attic. _It's Gerard's problem_.

Except that Gerard's problems had a nasty habit of becoming his own problems. When confronted with Gerard's problems Mikey felt as if he had walked into a children's home with all of them screaming 'take me! take me!' and despite not walking in there with the intention to adopt, he found himself taking all of them home with him anyway. Not that Gerard wouldn't do the same with Mikey's problems if he could but Mikey was more adept at being secretive than Gerard. Gerard's problems seemed to have a habit of being a bit on the salient side lately. At least Mikey hoped that the demon was the worst of Gerard's secrets and his thoughts came to a halting screech when they steered in the direction of the possibility that Gerard could have potentially more dangerous secrets than that of the demonic nature.

Mikey gave up on concluding that it was Gerard's problem and decided that he needed one night - just one night - where he wasn't sleeping with a demon on the floor above him. And preferably somewhere with alcohol. His nerves were in long need of a good soothing and being a Friday night, it shouldn't have been too difficult for an eighteen year old to find alcohol in Belleville.

***

In fact, it wasn't difficult at all. Mrs. Way, however, saw right through the ploy, gave Mikey a knowing smile and told him that she hoped at least Gerard was going if there was a chance of a house party getting beyond control. How she thought Gerard would help would be anyone's guess and Mikey, having a strong association of the demon with Gerard, found it ironic that the thing he was trying to avoid was in a vague sense coming along with him. Annoying yes, but not so annoying that he'd cancel the plans that he made with alcohol (and catching up with old acquaintances of course).

It was getting to that time of year when Gerard decided that he needed to leave the house to do something other than go to art school or work but he wasn't going to correct his parents when they looked assured that he was going purely for the sake of looking after Mikey. Mikey probably had attended more house parties than Gerard anyway. It was a little embarrassing that the only social event he'd attended in the past few months was the one that he had to tag along after his little brother.

***

Mikey woke up - or rather slowly approached surfacing consciousness - alone the following morning, with his hands covered in dirt and purple stains on his shirt. It was at this point that he became slightly annoyed - well, annoyed wasn't the right word; the right word was something along the lines of exasperated to be proven right - and his complete lack of memory for the previous night was strong evidence against the sentiment that Gerard had be looking after him. His body felt unusually heavy as he hauled himself to his feet which may have had something to do with the unexplained stash of pebbles in his pockets. Mikey frowned as his eyes gazed over the rock on the floor that had attempted to make a break for it, shrugged, and picked it back up.

It wasn't difficult to find Gerard. The sound of a TV at a low volume seemed the exact opposite of quiet due to Mikey's state of body and mind so all he had to do was locate the source of the blaring.

"They've got tapes of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy." Gerard's voice was monotonous, his mind located elsewhere. Mainly fixated on the improbability space drive and wondering how many times he'd have to hit the button before everybody on the ship temporarily turned into a different David Bowie persona. Gerard’s eyes were redder than they had any right to be.

"Have you been up all night?" Mikey grunted.

"I think I missed a few of the episodes, I must have nodded off at some stage."

"But you're supposed to be my lift home..." Mikey had fully intended to save up money for lessons and a car but somehow he always managed to find smaller and less useful pieces of crap that he'd rather spend his money on.

"I still will be." Gerard said with sincerity. "Right after this episode."

As was the natural order of these things, after that episode it turned out that there was only one more episode left until the end of the series and even then, Gerard was still half tempted to re-watch the whole series (there was only six episodes after all) and whilst attempting to make himself decide between pissing off Mikey and fulfilling the need for more Douglas Adams related things in his life, Gerard fell asleep.

Mikey sulked and deliberated throwing the rocks at Gerard. He presumed that there must have been some kind of logic as to why he decided that he needed the pebbles that only made sense to the drunken and intoxicated. Somewhere along the way of trying to make a clear decision, Mikey too found himself sliding down the slippery slope leading into unconsciousness.

***

It wasn't until passed seven that they got back home. Mrs. Way was distinctly unimpressed whereas Mr. Way looked oddly perturbed.

"Gerard," he said, with a death grip on his fork, "I believe I owe you an apology."

The broccoli on the end of Gerard's fork fell before it reached his mouth; preferring to face the odds of falling to its doom rather than its fate of being crushed to death by a set of halfhearted yet unrelenting teeth.

Mr. Way heaved in a deep breath and Gerard and Mikey exchanged anxious glances.

"You were out all last night, both of you?"

The graveness in their father's voice had rendered them into a state of shock and so they nodded before they realized their mistake. They'd never seen him this rattled before.

"Just as I thought."

"Donald..." Mrs. Way had the tone of a stern teacher.

"I need you to be open minded about this for me, Donna."

She raised an eyebrow.

Mr. Way cleared his throat and looked his two sons in the eye.

"Kids... I think the attic is haunted."

Mikey, being unfortunate enough to have had the coordination necessary to get the broccoli inside of his mouth, choked.


	7. Don't Let Your Demon Prank Your Parents

"Donald!" The shouting was Mrs. Way; she was not impressed with his antics. "We do NOT have a ghost in our attic!"

"I heard it. I can feel its presence."

Mrs. Way laughed out loud at that one.

"No, honey. You heard noises, decided that you heard a ghost and it's only after that decision that you started feeling this 'ghostly presence'."

"I wasn't hearing things!"

"So we might have rats again, or bats or... I don't know; there's a whole range of logical conclusions that could be made. I don't know why you - you're normally rational - leapt to the conclusion that our house is haunted."

"It was footsteps Donna! Rats don't make those kinds of footsteps! Not unless they're giant mutant rats-"

"That's it! Enough!"

Mikey and Gerard stared wide eyed at each other. They both could not shake the foreboding sense that something was about to go horribly wrong but at the same time could not think of a single way to stop it.

"Are you sure you weren't asleep, Dad?" Gerard asked tentatively.

"I'm quite capable of telling the difference, thank you Gerard." Donald Way rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm sure I wasn't dreaming."

"You know Dad," Mikey began with optimistic hopes that if he started saying something he'd suddenly be hit with an idea of how to finish his sentence, "it could be the... roof tiles."

"The roof tiles?"

Gerard nodded and took over.

"Sometimes in cold weather I can hear them cracking and sort of creaking... In a footstepy sounding way. If one fell off, you'd be able to hear that too. Maybe it wasn't the roof tiles at all, maybe it wasn't even coming from the attic, maybe-"

"Do you think it was a burglar?" Mr. Way's eyes widened and his mouth hung open.

"Nothing has gone missing. What sort of burglar would hide out in someone's attic for days on end?" Mrs. Way's face contorted itself into a mirror image of Mr. Way's expression. "Unless they're still up there now..." She cast her eyes to the ceiling. "... Waiting to kill us all."

An ominous silence followed.

It was broken by Mrs. Way bursting into laughter.

"You've been watching too many of Gerard's horror movies." She giggled. "You're all a bunch of wimps."

Mr. Way's mouth was set in a very straight line.

"Come on, then. There's only one thing for it." Donna Way rose from her chair. "I'll have to prove to you that there's nothing in there." She paused and then added, "Apart from rats maybe."

"No, no!" Both Gerard and Mikey chorused but were rendered silent by a dismissive wave of her hand and a roll of the eyes.  
Somehow, without being entirely sure of how this situation had arose, they found themselves following their mother to the bottom of the hatch to the attic.

"Fetch me a ladder." She commanded and Donald disappeared.

"I don't think this is a good idea." Gerard said, chewing on the ends of his fingers (he had long since run out of nails that were possible to chew on). "If this was a movie we'd end up angering the ghost by intruding on it, only it would pretend to not be here, then it would get to night and then would it start unleashing its fury on us and killing us one by-"

"Gerard," his mother sighed, "this is not a movie. This is real life. Ghosts just don't appear in people's attics one day all of a sudden."

Donald had returned carrying a ladder and the Ways felt mounting tension as the ladder was set properly against the floor.

"YOU KNOW WHAT, MOM," Mikey wasn't yelling; he simply had acquired the ability to speak with the volume of a foghorn "I'LL GO UP FIRST."

Gerard sent a quick prayer to the demon god or Satan or whoever the fuck he was that Frank had heard and had got the hint.

"Really Mikey," his mother scolded, "I'm standing right in front of you. I may be getting on a bit but I'm not losing my hearing just yet."

She proceeded to climb up the ladder anyway and pulled down on the lever of the hatch. Mr. Way stared in horror as she stuck head through the hatch, as if it was the last he'd ever see of it.

"Looks pretty ghost free to me." She began pulling herself through. "Donald, kids... I want you to come up here and learn a lesson."

Mr. Way pushed Mikey out of the way at the bottom of the ladder and began his ascent upwards with grim determination.

"What the hell is that?" Her voice was startled.

Gerard clutched at Mikey's arm. Mikey was too panicked to pretend that he minded.

Donald was all of the way up too and their mutterings weren't alarmed or startled - at least not in the way that the boys were expecting. Just more... Confused.

"Gerard..." Mikey whispered. "The salt."

"Shit. Fuck. Mother fucking shit. Fuuuuuuck." Gerard mouthed back.

Mikey nodded uncertainly and they clambered up one at a time.

The attic was cramped with the four of them plus all the years’ worth of accumulated junk that had been hoarded up there.

Gerard couldn't help but wonder where the fuck Frank was hiding. Mikey on the other hand, hoped that his parents wouldn't question why the suitcase appeared to be breathing.

Mrs. Way scraped at the white line surrounding the hatch with her fingernail.

"Salt?" She sniffed at it, presumably estimating her nose to be sensitive enough to be able to detect salt.

"Um..." Said Gerard.

"Was this you?" Her eyes were piercing but there was a soft edge to them that Gerard didn't know what to make of.

"Um..."

"Jesus Christ, is this what you'd get up to in here? Gluing salt to the floor? I mean, I know you were a bit of an... Unusual child but I didn't know you were quite that..." She spluttered with laughter.

"Um..." Gerard was finding it difficult to say much else. Or to stop his mouth from emitting the noise at all; it appeared to be operating autonomously. On the bright side, at least it was assumed that the salt had glued down approximately a decade ago and so further questions were avoided. Gerard wasn't sure whether to be offended that his Mom concluded he'd done it for fun or to be relieved that the subject was dropped.

The tension in Mr. Way's shoulders had not yet relaxed but his eyes were darting around less rapidly than they had been when he'd first entered.

"Is the ghostly presence stronger up here?" Mrs. Way grinned as the words left her mouth.

"Yes." Donald was in no way certain that there was any difference but he was certainly stubborn in not admitting defeat.

Mikey had to force himself not to stare at the suitcase. The zip was straining and the outline of a large lump in the main container was visible.

"At least there's no evidence of rats or anything." Donna nodded to the floor that was free of shit. It wouldn't have been the same story if Frank had not been given a dustpan and brush. "Happy now, Donald? No blood on the walls, no ominous creaking, no sudden power cuts..."

Donald sighed and began to follow her, shuffling resignedly towards the hatch.

"Just because we didn't see anything doesn't mean that nothing is here. It didn't hurt to look."

Naturally, it was at that moment when a Star Wars figurine flew of one of the shelves and collided with his head.

Mr. Way gasped in pain, Mrs. Way gasped in fear, Gerard also gasped in fear (a very different kind of fear reserved for the preservation of his someday valuable collectable) and Mikey gasped just because everybody else was gasping.

"So something falls off a shelf, it's not like it means somethi-" Mrs. Way began when Donald gave her a meaningful ‘I told you so’ look but was cut off by the sight of the bookshelf appearing to vomit a large book and then slowly, ever so slowly, the pages started turning.

The Way parents' eyes bulged.

Mikey glared at the suitcase and made a mental reminder to find out what other powers the demon had that he neglected to mention.

"I think it's trying to communicate..." Mr. Way whispered and tiptoed over to where the book lay splayed open on the floor. "It's the dictionary, Donna. It's using the dictionary." He crouched down and touched it gingerly. "It's open at M. What's it trying to say? There's a load of words on this page: meningitis, menstruation, menu, mercy, messy ..." He trailed off as a plastic sword swished its way across the wooden floor towards his feet like a sashaying shark.

"Donald..." Donna whispered, using hand motions to urge her sons to retreat back down the ladder.

Mr. Way gulped and crept closer and closer back towards his wife. With every step he took something else would shoot out from an unseen location, like somebody with invisible hands was sending the toys skidding across the floor at him. He only narrowly managed to avoid being overthrown by a stealth bear when at last, at long last, his wife's hands were in his and then she led him to the top of the ladder. In his hurry to escape his foot missed a step and he almost slid down the thing but Mikey was there at the bottom to steady him. Gerard would have been too if his reactions were quick enough.

Something clanged above them.

"Donna!"

But then her feet appeared on the rungs and she joined her pale and out of breath husband.

"The little shit got me with one of your ewoks." She said accusingly, as if it was all Gerard's fault. It kind was all his fault but she had no way of knowing that.

***

By the time it was late evening, the hatch to the attic had been taped down with duct tape (Mr. Way refused to listen when he was told that taping the hatch shut would do little to stop a vengeful poltergeist) and whilst the Way parents disappeared to discuss the recent changes in circumstances. Gerard and Mikey paced below the hatch, debating whether to open it and transfer Frank back underneath the bunk bed at the risk leaving evidence of the tape being visibly tampered with.

"I can't believe we came that close." Gerard's pupils were still huge.

"We're not in the clear yet." Mikey wore a grim smile. "And since you haven't brought it up: what the fuck is he playing at?"

"Frank? Being a poltergeist."

"But I didn't know he could... You know. Move stuff. Without touching it."

"Well if I could do that I'd probably pretend to be a poltergeist too-"

"GERARD! Mom and Dad aren't just going to let this go, you know! They think our house is actually haunted now..."

"But it isn't."

"No, our house is worse than haunted. Our house has a fucking demon living inside of it. What if they go up there again? What if they only have stuff to protect them against ghosts and Frank actually hurts them?"

Gerard bit his lip.

"I'm not sure he would but I don't know what we can do without giving anything away."

Mikey wiped his face and launched into logician mode.

"We can't let Frank stay up there without him being found. We can't get Frank out of there without going up there. We can't go up there without it being obvious that we moved the tape. We can't let anyone go up there who doesn't know what they're dealing with. We can't stop anyone going up there without drawing suspicion to ourselves... Gerard," Mikey switched to a gentler pleading tone, "the only solution is that you come clean."

Gerard scrunched up his face.

"I think we should see what Mom and Dad are planning to do, then see if we can break Frank out of the attic-"

"But the tape-"

"We can make it seem like the poltergeist did it. If we leave it blatantly ripped off the hatch they'll blame the ghost - they'll think it escaped to the rest of the house or some shit like that. We can make this work, Mikey. No one will have to know."

"And what about after that, Gerard? How can you possibly-"

"Kids?"

The two of them froze as the sound of their father's voice floated up the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell us Ray's address?"

Mikey gave Gerard a pointed shake of the head.

"Um..." Gerard uttered.

"We need his Dad to come over here. He's a priest isn't he?"


	8. Staying In Touch With Reality Has Its Uses

Not for the first time, Ray stood awkwardly in the hallway of the Way household. Nor was it the first time his Dad had taken Ray along with him on a supposed haunting or possessing investigation. It was, however, the first time that he had accompanied his Dad to the Way's house.

The investigations were always disappointing; they'd sound so promising and convincing when the families rang up or visited and then the two of them would arrive only to find nothing but people with vivid imaginations, people adept at pulling pranks or people who lived in a state of such ignorance that they failed to comprehend a person could be having a fit rather than leaping to the conclusion that they were possessed.

Ray was used to people with a flair for dramatics.

He hadn't accompanied his Dad on anything for years and the only reason he decided to on this instance was that he happened to be well acquainted with the family involved. That, and he was aware that the Ways presumably still hadn't resolved the ongoing issue with the demon living in their attic. He couldn't let his Dad wonder into a household prepared only for a ghostly spirit at the most when there was an actual demon there. So Ray had tagged along at last minute, much to his father's delight, with his pockets stuffed with vials of holy water, salt and a crucifix.

It was odd how close Ray kept getting to forgetting that the Ways' housed a demon. The idea of it was, of course, fucking ridiculous and not something that you just laugh off with an _'oh Gerard, what are you like?'_ but at the same time every day normal life had been doing a great job of distracting Ray. His new apprenticeship over the past couple of weeks had ground any extra reading of scriptures that might be of use to a complete halt and the local demon problem hadn't crossed his mind in an embarrassing length of time.

Ray blamed the human condition. The art of procrastination. The fact that as long as something didn't pose an immediate threat, only a potential indeterminate future threat, the odds of anything actually being done about it were slim. That, and the fact that finding a solution to this problem was fucking hard. Gerard, in an act of a very sane person who had some sort of weird owner and pet relationship with his demon, had made Ray promise not to tell his Dad or any other priest for that matter. Or more precisely, anyone at all. Gerard was absolute that the demon would not be exorcized or injured but agreed that keeping the thing inside of his house was impractical at the very least. Mikey was (in theory) working on getting Gerard to admit that keeping a demon on this plane of existence - on this planet even - was not just impractical but really fucking dangerous. He hadn't had much success so far. The whole thing would be much simpler if Gerard wasn't so stubbornly refusing to accept the most obvious and most practical solution. Maybe the demon had some weird sort of powers over Gerard that caused the protective behavior on Gerard's part. Or maybe it was something akin to Stockholm Syndrome because who the fuck gets protective over a demon?

Ray was half tempted to let the demon do as it may and devour both brothers: one for being a complete idiot and the other for letting him be an idiot but the truth was that Ray had grown quite fond of Mikey and he later decided that maybe sometimes people are destined for idiocy and that no amount of intervening with fate that can stop them.

In compliance with keeping his word, Ray said nothing to his Dad as they got into Donald Way's car and drove to the Way house. Was the ritual to exorcize a ghost different to the one for a demon? Ray searched through his memory but it failed to come to any more conclusive answers than one of a _probably_.

They were greeted by a Donna Way at the door and Ray had never seen her looking so frantic; her hair was frazzled, her eyes were wide and she held her body perfectly still.

"It attacked us with Star Wars toys." She said in a dazed voice.

Father Toro placed a solid hand on her shoulder and steered her to a table seat.

When Ray was a kid nothing could convince him that his Dad didn't have a superpower. He'd just lay a hand on someone and no matter how frightened or upset or scared they were they'd calm down as soon as he made the contact. Ray had tried doing the same thing to the other children in his class after they'd fallen over in the playground and was disappointed to discover that he only seemed to possess the power to make the other kids look at him weirdly. Maybe that was the beginning of electing not to follow in his father's footsteps.

Father Toro prompted Mrs. Way to tell her version of events and it was at that moment that Ray heard a scuffling noise upstairs followed by angry whispers. It was entirely unambiguous who was doing the whispered arguing so Ray left as least distractingly as possible and lurked in the hallway for a short while.

Despite the urgency of the situation, Ray still felt awkward wondering around another person's house without some members of the family aware that he was doing so. It   
felt wrong to invite himself to walk up those stairs in order to find the Way brothers but he made himself do it anyway.

"Mikey?" Ray called and the whispering came to an abrupt halt.

"Yes?"

Ray was rather hoping for an invitation or clarification that Mikey had some recognition of his voice.

"It's Ray." Ray said.

Footsteps. More scuffling noises. Eyes peering out from the upstairs landing.

"We're in deep shit." Mikey wasted no time with idle phatic conversation.

***

It took at least twenty minutes to extract the story from the brothers. In retrospect, Ray had made a poor choice in asking them what had happened whilst they were both occupying the same room. Mikey would start explaining and then Gerard would interrupt with a correction or elaboration or dispute what Mikey had just said and then overlap and continue with his version of events which Mikey would in turn start interrupting. The whole process was exhausting and gave Ray a small pang for his own brother who'd recently moved out of the house.

"Erm..." Ray said, racking his brain for a solution. "I'm going to be completely honest; isn't a priest equipped to get rid of demons exactly what you need?"

Gerard looked as if he wanted to tear out somebody's hair and Ray received an earful about demon rights (because those were a thing now according to Gerard) and how humans shouldn't presume to harm other sentient beings that hadn't caused them any physical harm.

"Gerard, he took a shit on your carpet." Mikey, as he often enjoyed doing these days, pointed out.

"That didn't physically harm me!" Gerard's fingers were deeply embedded in his hair and for a moment there Ray was anticipating with morbid fascination what it would look like if Gerard actually went ahead and starting ripping out his own hair. "Sure it was unpleasant. But you wouldn't put down a dog for shitting somewhere where it wasn't supposed to, would you? No. You'd fucking train it."

"Is Frank your new canine companion now?" Mikey's question clarified Ray's suspicions that Gerard was indeed viewing his demon as some sort of untrained house pet.

"Fuck off. He escaped. He had the opportunity to unleash mayhem and destruction upon the world if he wanted to. He didn't so much as harm a single person; he just hid in the attic. That doesn't sound like evil demonic behavior to me."

"I'm sure we're all horribly racist - speciesist? - against demons."

Gerard showed no signs of acknowledging Mikey's sarcasm and nodded eagerly.

"Throughout history we've blamed bad things that we've done on them. We just assume, because of some stories in religious books, that every single demon that exists is inherently evil-"

"They do come from hell." Mikey received a death glare.

"It's not clear how they got there."

"The sinning probably has something to do with it."

"Oh please. Premarital sex is supposed to be a sin. Eating meat from a pig is supposed to be a sin. Wearing polyester is supposed to be a sin."

"So demons are just bacon-loving, polyester-wearing lovable folk who got sentenced to hell after God decided that the premarital sex on top of the rest of it was too much."

"Well, for all we know - YES. It could be. Think about it seriously, Mikey. One hundred percent of the demons that we have encountered haven't tried to harm us."

"That we know of." Mikey countered. "And we have a sample of one. It's hardly going to be representative of -"

"We're wasting time here." Ray warned but for all the attention that he received he might as well have not bothered saying anything. Surely his Dad would finish the conversation downstairs soon and go up to the attic to investigate for himself...

"I won't let anyone hurt something that we have no reason to hurt other than blind prejudice!"

"I'm all for fighting the good fight, Gerard. But can't you see that right now we have no other solution?" Mikey's eyes were pleading.

"Only because you keep interrupting me when I'm trying to think!"

"Guys, we're running out of time..." Ray attempted again with no differing results.

"I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU! YOU'RE IN A FUCKING MESS!" Mikey yelled.

Gerard swallowed and his eyes glistened.

"That doesn't make it okay to stand back and let something die." He said in a small voice.

"We need to come to a decision quickly. And for the record, demons just get sent back to hell when they're exorcized." Ray informed.

"Do we actually know that though? Even if it's true, hell sounds... horrific. Maybe Frank hates it there. Maybe he doesn't want to go back."

"He can't just live here forever." Mikey said with more gentleness in his voice, like breaking the news to a child that his pet rabbit got ran over by a car.

"I just... I just need time to think, okay?" Gerard's breath was coming in and out in small shallow gasps and he was blinking rapidly.

"They'll be up here soon." Ray said and Mikey, who had found himself about to start giving Gerard a comfort hug, glared daggers at Ray. Ray couldn't help but feel that more was at stake apart from Gerard's feelings here. Not that he didn't feel bad for guy, of course he did. Gerard was without a doubt a good guy - probably like a stage six on Kohlberg's model of moral reasoning or something equally ridiculous (the same level as where Jesus and Gandhi were supposed to be. Not that Ray was comparing Gerard to Jesus or anything. Was he?) - but someone needed to start thinking in the next two minutes or else they'd end up sat back and watching the events unfold only without the luxury of being able to do anything about it should the events start fucking up. It seemed kind of inevitable that things would start fucking up. Since Gerard made his decisions with his emotions and Mikey made his decisions based on realism tinted by Gerard's emotions it fell to Ray to start being the rational and decisive one.

Shit.

The great conundrum: _two boys hide a demon in the attic and it starts making noises. Their parents think that it's a ghost and investigate only to have objects thrown at them by the demon. They call the local priest and want an exorcism to get rid of the dangerous spirit. None of the adults know that there is a demon in their house and whilst the demon hasn't taken the opportunity to harm anyone, none of the boys can completely vouch for its intentions. There is tape on the hatch to the attic so if the boys decide to try risking moving the demon without being caught, the parents will know that someone has been up (or down) from the attic. If they realize this then they will either discover that the boys hid someone (to be exact: a demon, in which case they'd ask for a demon exorcism) inside their house or search the house for the believed escaped ghost. The parents and priest should not be left alone with the demon, for they will be in danger and they cannot be informed about the demon because... Because one of the boys would be in great trouble._

Was that all that was stopping them?

"Have you thought about just coming clean?"

"Only as a last resort." Gerard muttered.

_The boys may accompany the priest to the attic, where they can protect him from the demon, should the worst come to the worst. The priest will perform an exorcism for a ghost (which only probably differs from the exorcism for demons) but the effects of the exorcism upon the demon are unknown. One of the boys insists that the demon should not be harmed or sent back to hell so informing any adults that the spirit is a demon is problematic as it is likely to result in an exorcism. Think of a solution whereby the adults are not at risk, the boys escape trouble and the demon is not exorcized._

Minutes passed.

"I've got a plan." Ray said with a grin that showed all of his teeth.

That moment was the moment that all the boys' parents decided to show up.

"All right, Ray?" Father Toro asked and Ray nodded a little too vigorously.

The six of them headed to the part of the landing where the entrance to the attic was.

"You kids would be better staying down here - unless you want to come up for educational reasons, Ray."

"Gerard and Mikey are as much a part of this as Mr. and Mrs. Way." Ray lied. They were a far bigger part of this than the adults could comprehend. "I think they'd benefit from watching the ritual. It'll be like closure, they'll know for definite that it's gone." Ray caught Mikey's eye and Mikey was compelled to agreeing as well as to elbowing Gerard. Fat lot of good it did, Gerard remained doing what he had been previously; saying nothing, expressing nothing.

Father Toro considered his son's words before speaking.

"You may have a point. Besides, they're responsible enough to make their own decisions."

"We're coming." Mikey said promptly.

The attic was so full of people that there were legitimate concerns about the floor - it was wooden and as old as the rest of the house, but unlike the rest of the house it had never had any adjustments or replacements. It creaked loudly with only five people weighted on it as Gerard climbed the ladder, praying under his breath _don't let them see you Frank, don't let them see you._

He could see nothing. Frank was out of sight at the moment.

"I do feel a certain... presence here." Father Way frowned; he wasn't used to actually being able to feel them on duties like this. It was a whole new experience.  
Donald clutched Donna's hand and suspiciously eyed Gerard and Mikey's childhood toys.

The ritual itself was anticlimactic. The boys held their breath and waited for the demon to send something flying into someone's head or to leap out of the nearest suitcase or to start screaming as it found its soul being sent back to hell. But nothing happened. Ray's father said the words and went through every motion before turning to the Way parents.

"I feel like its presence has lessened a lot but I can't say for certain whether it is entirely gone. You should be safe tonight but ring our phone or stop by our house if you have any problems."

"I feel it less too." Donald said.

One by one, they went back through the hatch. Donna was executing her thanks when Father Toro turned around and said:

"By the way, you really should look into getting that floor fixed. The whole attic stinks of rot."

Mikey could have kicked himself. How had nobody noticed before? Were both himself and Gerard so used to the demon's ever so pleasant cologne of egg that they'd failed to notice the attic stank of it? Why hadn't their parents said something about the stink? Mikey was well aware that their parents' sense of smell must be rapidly dying because of their lack of noticing when Gerard smelled his worse but surely it couldn't be that bad... Could it?

Ray left reluctantly with his father, whispering in Mikey's ear for him to call tomorrow.

***

It was hours before Donald and Donna went to sleep. Only after Gerard and Mikey could hear their deep breaths and light snores did they dare climb back up into the attic.

"Frank?" Gerard called softly and turned on the light. Nothing. "Frank? Where are you?"

Mikey went straight for the largest suitcase, opened it with a dramatic flair but found nothing demonic inside. Undeterred, he went for the next suitcase. The next one. And the one after that.

Gerard searched the wardrobe, behind stacks of boxes, underneath blankets and pillows but came up with nothing.

Half an hour later, together they'd scoured the entirety of the attic and had come up with nothing.

Gerard's movements were frantic.

"Gerard," Mikey bit his lip, "you don't think that the ghost ritual thing actually worked on Frank do you?"

Gerard said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to clarify that the religious references (particularly with Christianity and Catholicism) aren't exactly accurate and are changed in (lots of) places for the purposes of this story. 
> 
> Obviously opinions on this story would be much appreciated.


	9. Hiding In Garbage Cans Only Works Out Well In Cartoons

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

That was Mikey.

"..."

That was Gerard.

Mikey began pacing the room and flinging around boxes and furniture that had already been searched in desperate hopes that it might, in a defiant stand against the laws of physics, magically uncover the missing demon. It didn't, obviously. It did bring Mikey's attention to something else though. That something was the salt circle. In particular: the vertical cracked line that ran straight through a section of the circumference. The sight of it thrust a memory into the forefront of Mikey's mind; the memory of his mother scraping the salt with her fingernail and asking whether the substance was salt.

"Gerard." Mikey felt a peculiar sensation of relief. "Gerard look at this."

Gerard, paler than usual, trudged over and stared blankly.

"Mom broke the circle." Mikey let out a disbelieving laugh. "She broke it and we never even noticed."

Gerard's mouth hung open.

"Do you know what this means?" Mikey asked with traces of glee in his voice. "It means he was never exorcized because he wasn't even here: he escaped before Father Toro so much as got up here!"

Finally, finally, there was a light in Gerard's eyes.

"That little bitch." Gerard said in a wondrous voice that descended into breathy laughter.

The sense of alleviation baffled Mikey. For a short number of minutes (that in truth felt very long) he had truly believed that Father Toro had unknowingly exorcized a demon and sent him back on his way to hell. It went without saying that that version of events, although upsetting to Gerard, would conveniently solve the giant demon problem that had dominated their lives for the past three months. Except... The thought of Frank actually having been exorcized rather than the thought of Frank being exorcized at some unknown point in the future had caused nothing but dread to start pooling into the bottom of Mikey's stomach. What made the situation more odd as far as Mikey was concerned, was that the thought of the demon just having escaped again was by far more relieving than the thought of the demon being banished back to hell.

"I think I might be ill." Mikey muttered.

***

It was dark. Frank sat with his knees pulled up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The floor was a hard and rough texture and he could feel the coldness of it seeping in through the material of the trousers he had borrowed. It was the first time he'd been outside in decades and as luck would have it, he was constricted to seeing nothing but darkness.

The sound of passing footsteps of strangers, the barking of dogs and the roaring of engines had passed through the metal walls.

The world was a noisier place than the one he remembered.

Unlike hell, advancements actually took place on Earth. The only time that hell had been revolutionized was at the precise point that the place had come into existence. The demons that ran the place were so stuck into their ways and the way that things had been done for millennia that they'd never considered other options were possible. You'd think that with so many souls or entities trapped in one singular place - so many supposed cunning and deviously sly citizens of hell - that together or separately (at least one or the other) they'd figure some way of getting out, getting over their aversions to holy water and so on and just learn to have a good fucking time without being bothered by any of that shit. But that required going against the typical nature of a demon and being able to put aside their individual desires and unite for a common cause. So naturally, demons were at no more of an advantage than they were when hell first began. Well, that wasn't strictly true. There were far less exorcisms and demon hunts these days but that was due to the evolution of human science rather than the evolving cunning of a demon. The only progress that existed down there disappeared with the demon named Ipos.

You'd think that if they were becoming so concerned about the overpopulation of hell that they'd do a better job of advertising against sinning or something. Finding higher standards of criteria for a person to become a full time resident was an option. Or hire scarier receptionists to deter onlookers who hadn't made up their minds yet about their next place of residence and could be swayed to choose somewhere other than hell for the upcoming eternity.

Frank shifted a little. Being confined to such a small space like this wasn't so comfortable but it wasn't as if he had the time or tolerance to search for better options. He'd been eager to find out what else about this world had changed, besides the increasing popularity of casual clothing and generally angrier music.

Frank had almost not noticed when the circle had been broken in the attic; it all seemed too perfect. What's more than that - he hadn't been spotted making his getaway. It was as easy as walking out of the front door. Which is exactly what Frank did.

He wasn't entirely sure what spurred the decision to inhabit the roof of the Way household but he was (only at the time) glad that he did. He could watch the shiny metal cars (did every household have one now?) ambling around streets and veering off to merge with the city smog. It surprised him how much the view had changed by moving upwards a couple of meters. He had been lying almost directly above the skylight in the attic whilst the tiles dug into his back. Every so often he found himself having to dig his heels in and shove his palms down in order to stop himself from sliding off the roof. Frank had been laying back and anticipating seeing the evening's constellations (or rather light dusting of stars) as the sky had been relatively clear but was startled when muffled voices and footsteps sounded from below him. One of which he was positive was the woman who he had spoken to whilst fetching the cleaning fluid but there was an entirely unfamiliar male voice too. They were talking about some sort of ceremony and intrigued, Frank's ears pricked up.

Then he found out that the 'ceremony' was an exorcism.

His footing slipped and he ended up shooting downwards a few feet.

Frank struggled to keep his breath under control - or a more accurate way of putting it would be to say that he struggled to keep his breath from going too far out of control.

More footsteps.

Frank hesitated between putting as much distance between himself and them as possible or finding out as much as possible. Then he realized that the fear had done an adept job of paralyzing him and that the choice was already made for him since he wasn't going anywhere.

The stranger was voicing reassurance that Frank couldn't fathom up until it occurred to him that he was trying to reassure the Way family rather than the demon that they believed to still be in the attic.

It filled Frank with dread to think what would have happened if he hadn't on impulse decided to leave the house the instant he found a way of doing so.

He pressed his ear against the roof top. He could hear every step they took, every word they said.

_Don't let them see you Frank, don't let them see you_.

Frank internally swore. He'd almost forgotten about that pesky bond up until he felt the weight of a command sink into his skull.

The sentiments of the command he had no problem with; it was in his best interests not to be seen by people who wanted to exorcize him. The logistics of it on the other hand...

Although Frank was not in sight of any of the unspecified _them_ (but assumed the _them_ to be any inhabitants of the house who were not already aware of Frank's existence) but he was hardly hidden; if one of them so much as walked out of the door and to the car, Frank would be in plain sight.

He blamed the lack of foresight of his chosen hiding place on having to make a rushed decision. He cursed himself for it but couldn't risk moving until he knew for sure that whoever the _they_ was supposed to be had left. Choosing the closest thing that could fit something human sized inside of it was hardly the wisest choice - why hadn't he just run for it?

Fucking hell, he could be miles away by now if he'd just pegged it.

He needed - desperately needed - to escape the ones who'd shove him back into hell and here he was, hidden inside a garbage can that was still on their property. His thoughts screamed at him to _run, run, put as much distance between you and them as you can_ but instinct told him to stay hidden until he knew for certain that they'd gone.

The only bright side to the situation that he could see was that at least his chosen garbage can was empty. 

He sat in tense silence, hunched up and ears straining for what seemed like hours until he heard satisfied voices and the definitive sound of a car engine. During that length of time Gerard's command circulated his head like an unwanted fly.

Gerard didn't want him to be seen. From that, Frank could deduce that Gerard didn't want him to be exorcized. That seemed reasonable; anyone who'd gone to the lengths of a summoning ritual like that only to have their efforts wasted would have been a bit put out. That must have meant that Gerard still had a use for him. But for what purpose? Frank had hardly been given any commands and the ones that he had been given were small odd requests that rarely directly and solely benefited Gerard. Gerard seemed content to let Frank do as he pleased as long as no one else was alerted to where he was. None of it added up and the mystery was an itch under his skin.  
Still, Frank wasn't going to stick around to find out what the use was. As long as Frank wasn't around to hear the commands, the commands would have no hold over him. There was a reason that gags were common place for demons in slave bonds (besides the obvious incentive of not having to listen to a demon mouthing off any longer) and that reason was to prevent the demon loudly humming or singing every time they saw their master begin to open their mouth and thus making the demon unable to hear the command.

He didn't know why he still remained crouched there, long after he'd heard the car drive away. He told himself that he was just figuring out where to go, how he'd travel away... He'd seen an unbelievable number of aircraft from the skylight; maybe he could use one of those... However much the world had changed, he doubted that the fact that these things cost money had changed too.

Frank internally told himself to get a grip and decided that he'd figure that part out later. He'd go all the way on foot if he had to.

He lifted the lid above his head with the tips of his fingers a couple of inches and peered out through the gap. Lights were still on in the house but the coast was clear. Frank lifted it higher and was about to begin to climb out of it when the headlights of Mr. Way's car illuminated the driveway and Frank's skin was burning all over until-  
Frank ducked and the lid clanged with such force that Frank winced at the volume.

One set of footsteps left the car this time rather than the set of three that went into it.

Frank's hands were shaking around his knees.

The footsteps got closer.

Frank held his breath.

"Vermin." Mr. Way growled. It was without a doubt not the kind of growl that somebody would growl if they thought a demon was hiding in their garbage can but more like the kind of growl that somebody would emit after discovering that a young girl with blond hair had broken into their house again, ate all of their porridge and didn't even have the grace to enjoy it - and for that reason Frank was able to breathe again.

Then the garbage can received a vicious kick that sent it falling onto its side.

Frank, still inside the garbage can, fell with a clatter to the floor, whacking his head on the side of the can.

The lid fell off entirely and the can started slowly rolling down the slight downhill gradient. Frank dared not move though. Not until Mr. Way had gone.  
There. The sound of the door shutting.

By the time Frank was certain he was no longer at risk of being seen, he had rolled quite a significant distance inside of his can. Two things didn't happen until he crawled out of the can: the first was that the burning sensation reared its ugly head and the second was that he realized that he was in fact, in the middle of the road.

Frank leaped to his feet, ready to make a break for the sidewalk but before he got there there were the blinding headlights, squealing of tires and the sounding of a horn.  
In hindsight, the driver of the car was being a touch melodramatic. They'd been cruising along at a relatively slow pace and all that was required was a short notice brake, no need for all that honking and skidding around.

Admittedly, the car had made contact with Frank. Just about. It pushed him with all the force of an aggressive butterfly and although Frank ended up back on the ground due to the shock of it, it wasn't as if he was actually injured.

Not that the driver would believe him.

It was probably the insisting that he was fine through gritted teeth and clenched fists that made the driver not believe him but the reality was that the pain was not an injury caused by being hit by a car but as a result of Frank's disobedience of an order.

All the noise had raised a significant amount of attention and curious eyes from the nearby houses were watching through twitching curtains.

Unseen behind the curtains of her bedroom, Mrs. Way watched with concerned eyes as her son's boyfriend had narrowly escaped being hit by a car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... Comment? 
> 
> Also, I'm not American so if I've unknowingly used phrases/words in this that sound out of place and very British that will be why (feel free to let me know if I have).


	10. Bullshit Your Way Through

The amount of persuading that it took the driver to get the hint and just _fuck off_ was beyond ridiculous. Frank had to demonstrate that each of his limbs were in fact fully functioning and then as if that wasn't humiliating enough, the driver demanded that he walked down the line (seriously - the center line of the road - as if being in the middle of the road wasn't what had caused all of the trouble in the first place) in order to prove that he wasn't just drunken and disorderly. Frank struggled to accept that after all of the driver’s (repeatedly asked) questions and (repeatedly requested) proofs that they hadn't broken him or something, they managed to question everything but the garbage can that Frank had crawled out of.

Hurrah for small conveniences. Unfortunately, the staggering amount of accumulating inconveniences rendered that one utterly unappreciated.

As the car left and the burning amounted to a temperature that felt as if somebody was trying to serve up his muscles as a fry up, Donna Way opened the door with a friendly smile as if she hadn't been plotting to send Frank back to hell.

The pain was enough to send Frank doubling over but he still staggered further and further away from the house and into the shadows of the bushes next door. He'd have gone further if it wasn't for the pain of disobeying Gerard’s order to not be seen.

"Hey!"

Frank squeezed his eyes shut and did his best to block out the sound of her voice.

He could hear the sound of Donna Way's slippers scuffling as she took a few steps out of the door.

"Are you alright?"

Frank wished that he was a demon with a power. The power to turn invisible would have been really handy at that moment but instead he had to make do with attempting to seep into the center of the bush.

"I think you're in shock right now and I don't know why you're hiding from me but..." She shuffled forwards more until Frank could see the bottom of her legs and the rest of her was obscured by the leaves. "Me and my husband would love you to come over and meet us properly sometime..."

Frank was appalled. How gullible did she think he was?

She moved forwards some more until she was stood directly in front of Frank.

"I don't want to alarm you but you're not very well hidden." Mrs. Way sounded tired.

Fuck - it was true; Frank's trainers were clearly visible and sticking out at the bottom.

Definite cause for alarm.

Throwing his hands in front of his face, Frank leaped forwards and propelled himself out of the confines of the hedge and straight into an alarmed Mrs. Way who squawked in alarm.

"Frank?"

He wasn't quite prepared to hear Gerard's voice at that moment considering that his contact with Mrs. Way had left Frank sprawling on the floor and unable to spot the front door of the Way’s house opening.

Two pairs of sprinting footsteps and then Gerard and Mikey emerged into view.

"Frank!" Gerard called, spotting him. Frank scrambled to his feet. "Frank, just stay there, okay?"

Frank froze. The burning had stopped. Did that mean that Gerard's latest command had overridden his order for Frank to remain unseen? It must have done; the two had come into a conflict. There was no possible way for Frank to remain where he was whilst still being unseen as Mrs. Way was staring right at him. Without a doubt, Frank was beyond relieved that the burning had finally stopped. The problem, however, was that now Frank would not be able to escape without the burning starting again, since escaping required moving from that spot. It was a choice between burning for who knew how long (was there a distance thing to these bonds? Would the command eventually expire? Would Frank be forever burning for as long as Gerard was his master?) or letting himself be condemned to being exorcized. At least, that was what Frank assumed Gerard required him to be still for. Maybe Gerard had realized that Frank was far more on the useless side than he liked and wanted to get rid of him. At least if he was exorcized, the bond would break. Ironic that hell would be his salvation from the possibility of eternal burning.

Frank obeyed.

Frank obeyed and Gerard's hands were helping him to regain his balance.

"Just go along with it..." Gerard whispered in Frank's ear during the process of not letting him fall to the floor. "Only when my parents are around..."

What was that supposed to mean? Did that mean that Gerard wouldn't let them exorcize him? Frank's mouth was slack.

"You alright, Frank?" Mikey asked tentatively.

_Just go along with it_.

Frank managed a weak nod. He was so sick of these commands.

"He's not." Mrs. Way spoke like Frank wasn't even there. "I just watched him almost get run over and then when I came out to see whether he was okay he decided to hide. I think he's in shock. Either that or..." She trailed off.

"I'm not in pain." Frank stated. It wasn't a lie.

Mrs. Way scanned his body for obvious signs of injuries and found none apart from the scratches on his face and arms that had nothing to do with any slow moving vehicles and more to do with self-inflicted injuries though the medium of a hedge.

"I know, I know." She sighed, providing what Frank thought was alarmingly passable as genuine sympathy. "I think you're in shock." She placed a hand on Frank's shoulder and Frank felt revulsion spread through him. "I think you should come inside, sit down, have a hot chocolate and a chance to calm down. Is that okay with you?"

_No. Absolutely not_.

"Okay." Frank found himself saying, out of nothing but self-preservation for the fact that he didn't want to feel the burn from disobeying Gerard's order to go along with it. Whatever _it_ was supposed to be exactly.

Mrs. Way led him towards with the door with a hand on his back that Frank assumed she thought was reassuring.

***

"I must say," Mrs. Way said, heating up the milk, "I've wanted to meet you for so long, Frank."

Frank made a mental note to replace 'meet you' with 'exorcize you' every time in future.

She added the powder to the cup.

"I don't know why it's taken so long..." She pondered, rolling her eyes at Mikey. "I've told Mikey so many times that we're not going to discriminate against any sexuality in this house so I don't know why he's so reluctant for us to meet." Frank frowned and wondered what she was trying to get at. "I was waiting for Mikey to finally get round to bringing his first boyfriend home, but I guess I got impatient."

Frank blinked.

Mikey didn't flinch. There was no sting to the insult that his own mother seemed to lack the ability to accept that her son's sexuality was nonexistent but rather more of a dull ache. His features remained stationary and held with perfect composure but disappointment radiated involuntarily through his eyes. How hypocritical that she was so insistent that she'd accept any sexuality - except for a lack of one.

But Mikey hesitated to correct her (again). Wasn't her belief a convenient one? It gave a good reason for Frank to have been sighted inside the house, for himself and Gerard to have attempted to hide Frank's presence from her and for Frank to have some amount of fear for Mrs. Way.  
As long as she didn't connect Frank with the 'ghost' in the attic, the outcome was bearable. Mikey could live with the (hopefully temporary) assumption that Frank was his boyfriend so long as the end result wasn't Frank being exorcized. The few hours and panic that had passed earlier had taught Mikey that.

Mikey opened his mouth, about to introduce his supposed boyfriend to his mother and spoon feed her what she wanted but Gerard caught his eye and shook his head.

"Actually," Gerard said, "he's my boyfriend."

A stunned silence followed in which Frank took another shocked blink, Mikey's shoulders relaxed and Mrs. Way dropped the spoon inside the cup.

Frank debated whether to peg it out of the house and face whatever pain he'd receive.

"Oh." Mrs. Way uttered and handed Frank his hot chocolate. Judging from her reaction, Frank assumed that the general public's reaction to homosexuality had changed considerably over the past half a century.

"Yes," said Frank, clutching his mug and hoping that that was enough to count as going along with it.

Mrs. Way gave a sweet smile that Frank considered predatory and Gerard sat himself down next to Frank on the sofa within closer proximity that Frank was comfortable with.

Frank gritted his teeth. _Just go along with it_.

There was no hand holding, no knee fondling or public displays of affection, a fact for which Frank was grateful for.

"Frank," Mrs. Way said gently, as if he might break if she spoke too loudly, "if you want to stay the night, that's fine. I can't let you stay in the same room as Gerard if your parents don't know that you're here though. And if they don't know about... You know."

Frank grimaced.

"Thanks, but they uh... They don't know I'm here." Did this count as going along with it? He wasn't sworn to be honest after all. Maybe by spinning lies this way, he would be able to make his escape without the pain after all.

"Okay honey. You can ring them if you want to or if you want to go home, I'll give you a lift."

Shit.

She just subtly tested calling him out on his bullshit, all whilst having that innocent and well-meaning smile plastered on her face. Frank could hardly give her directions to a random house and then be expect the strangers to let him inside, could he?

He ignored the odd look that Gerard was giving him.

It pained Frank but he continued anyway.

"I'll ring them then."

Gerard's eyebrows rose higher as Mrs. Way handed over the house phone.

Frank couldn't say he was certain what Mrs. Way's play of the game was but he'd be dammed if he rolled over and let her win.

He handled the phone gently and fingered the springy coils of plastic that dangled from it. It did not take him long to figure out that there was no spin dial with this sort of phone and the whole process was much simplified by just having buttons to press and foregoing the process of speaking to an operator. He pressed a series of random numbers and waited. The dial tone became audible. He waited some more. Mrs. Way, being able to hear the tone from where she was, gave a quick grin and turned her back. Frank took the opportunity to end the call - or he hoped that button ended the call anyway.

It didn't.

There was one more ringing noise and Frank felt Mrs. Way's eyes on him again - why was she so intent on hating his guts? - and then there was a brief pause in which somebody picked up the phone.

"Hello?" The voice was cautious and male. Frank took a deep breath and hoped that none of the conversation would be audible from the other side of the room.

"Hi Dad," Frank said, "I'm just-"

"Bill?" The voice croaked. "Bill, is that you? It's about time-"

"I'm just letting you know that I'll be staying over at a friend’s house tonight..."

"Oh Bill, you know I'm useless with these bleedin' code phrases. Just tell me what you really mean."

"I mean, I'll only stay if that's all right with you." Frank said, desperate to make it at least plausible that he was having some sort of flowing conversation regarding the topic.

"For fucks sake Bill! No one's listening! Forget the fucking code phrases! HAVE YOU OR HAVE YOU NOT SOLD THE HORNS?"

Frank was on the brink of one of those revelations where the victim of them wonders what the fuck just happened to their life.

"Uh..." Frank's mouth fell open. "Yes?" And then, remembering the purpose of the call he quickly added. "Thanks, see you later."

"Bill, wait a sec-"

"Bye Dad."

Frank hung up - for real this time.

"He says it's fine." Frank called out to no one in particular.

"He didn't sound all that happy," Mrs. Way replied, "judging from how I could hear his yelling all the way from over here."

Frank clenched his fists, waiting for yet another thing to go wrong and for her to announce that she had heard every word of the conversation (the speaker wasn't exactly quiet) and reveal Frank as a liar.

But it never happened.

Frank gave a generic shrug.

"He's normally like that." He suspected that it wasn't a lie.

"Right." She took the now empty cup from his hands. "You're staying in Mikey's room and nowhere else, understood?" She paused for a moment and her gaze softened. "It's not that I don't trust you, it's just that I don't feel right if your parents don't know."

He held back the urge to snort. More like she wanted him trapped where she knew exactly when to find him the moment she'd summon the priest back. Still, what choice did he have?

_Just go along with it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's just a bit of an... eh. Still not satisfied with it but can't pin point exactly why. It needed to be written anyway. 
> 
> Note that Mrs. Way has good intentions but as this chapter is written with Frank in mind (who knows that she wants him exorcized but doesn't know that she doesn't know who the demon is) she's demonized a bit.


	11. Pro Tip: Don't Summon A Demon In The First Place

Frank was trapped. Mikey had told him not to attempt to escape (seriously, what was the point; did Mikey not know that slave bonds just didn't work like that?) and had salted the window sills and the bottom of the door.

So there was no chance of just being able to walk out now and with Frank confined to one room it would make it so much easier for the priest to get him cornered.

Mikey slept through Frank's endless pacing and his even breaths did nothing to soothe Frank's worn out nerves.

There was no chance of escaping without breaking the circle. Frank entertained the idea of using Mikey as some sort of hostage when the time came. Whenever Mrs. Way decided to get on with it and stop messing around with demon's heads in the same way that a cat plays around with its prey before devouring it, that was.

With Mikey asleep, it was an excellent opportunity for action. Frank knew this. Frank knew this and yet was no closer to having thought of how to avoid being exorcized than some desperate back up plan he wasn't sure he'd have the nerve to perform. _Breathe Frank_. If he just relaxed - which admittedly, is difficult under such circumstances - he'd be able to think clearly and rationally and conjure up a solution to the impending doom issue.

It was the not being able to think aspect that added to the panic.

Desperate for resources and with a lack of any foreseeable other options, Frank began to (quietly) root through Mikey's belongings. Who knew, maybe he'd get lucky and find something he could take inspiration from.

He didn't, but not for Frank's lack of trying.

It was as Frank lay on the floor peering underneath Mikey's bed that a small knock sounded at the door.

Frank jerked upright and watched as the door opened, the bottom of the door skirting over the salt on the floor and yet not moving it one bit. If the bottom of the door had been a couple of millimeters lower down it would have been a different story and so it was with _that_ final piece of evidence that Frank decided the universe was definitely conspiring against him.

"Hey Frank." Gerard murmured, stepping over the salt line and sitting himself opposite Frank on the floor. Frank said nothing. Some small part of him had genuinely believed that Gerard wouldn't let Frank be exorcized and look where that got him. Frank should have fucking ran. Gerard cleared his throat. "I don't know what happened."

Frank scoffed.

"No really," Gerard insisted, "All I know is that you've been acting weird all evening... If you wanted to go outside that badly you could have just asked, you know? You running off like that doesn't help us trust you."

Frank thought that being trapped inside the same house as people who would send him back to hell wasn't good for helping _him_ to trust _them_.

"I don't know," Gerard continued, "you just seem really edgy all of a sudden. And I don't really know why. I know we've had lots of close calls today but we'll figure something out."

Frank couldn't figure out why Gerard was bothering to use the word _we_ ; it wasn't as if he was giving Frank any choice in the matter.

"Gerard," Frank tried hard to keep the shaking out of his voice, "I really _really_ don't want to go back to hell."

"Is that was this has been about?" Gerard's tone was harsh and astonished at the same time. "That's why you escaped?"

Frank nodded.

"I'm not going to let that happen." Gerard said. There was a raw kind of power in his words and for the first time Frank got a real glimpse of the guy who could perform such a strong summoning ritual. The power had never been audible when Gerard was in a time of personal crisis nor when he was desperate or angry but it was there now. And yet Frank still couldn't have faith in his words. Gerard had managed to convince only himself that his words were true. Even if it was true, Frank couldn't help but feel the not just the sinking but plummeting realization that somehow an exception would be made when it was Gerard's own family that he'd have to fight against for his cause.

"I want to believe you." Frank whispered.

"I'm offended." Gerard offered a small smile. "I guess I'll have to prove it to you then." He stood up and headed for the door. "Like I said: we'll figure something out, somehow."

The door shut behind him.

***

Many rummaging through tissue boxes, cassette tapes and notebooks later, Frank finally found something of significance: The Lesser Key of Solomon. Sat right there underneath Mikey's bed, complete with Mikey's notes on it. If Frank was being honest, he didn't understand what half of the words and sentences were supposed to mean and the fact that he would be half guessing the basis of which demon he was about to summon unnerved him.

Still, this option was preferable to banking on a guy who had recently admitted that he had no plan.

He chose the trait and power of the demon very carefully. It would have to suit his need to escape without the demon being too powerful to control. Frank didn't think that anyone would be happy with his solution; if a demon was the cause of their problems the last thing they would want is another demon thrown into the mix. That was one of the main reasons he decided not to ask the local powerful and experienced summoner of demons to do the ritual. That, and the guy having yet another (more powerful and useful) demon to command would make Frank seem all that more incompetent and then Gerard might decide to send Frank back to hell after all and keep the new demon around to do his bidding instead. Whenever Gerard got around to deciding what he wanted from a demon anyway.

So the risk of not being sure of how much control Frank could have over the demon of unknown moral alliance would have to be taken.

The unshakable notion that he would probably regret this weighed in Frank's stomach but he began whispering the words anyway and hoped that the fact that his voice was shaking wouldn't cause the slave bond to be any weaker.

***

Just as the portal opened it occurred to Frank that maybe he should have gotten Mikey out of the room, considering that the demon he was supposed to be summoning might be a little murderous and Frank wasn't entirely sure that he'd be able to stop the demon if it became necessary.

When the demon with hair so long and knotted that it looked as if it had never learned what a brush was materialized in the center of the circle wearing a manic smile like a Halloween mask, Frank concluded that yes - he really should have moved Mikey out of the room.

He used the few seconds in which he hoped that the demon would be at least a little disorientated after a portal spewed them out without much prior warning to slap Mikey. Mikey grunted a little in his sleep. The demon's grin grew into one of the proportions of the villains in Gerard's comics. Frank dragged Mikey's unconscious body across the floor before he realized that he couldn't actually get Mikey out of the room because of the salt line crossing the path of the door.

Frank settled for holding Mikey's nose instead.

The demon watched with eyes so dark they appeared black and she tilted her head to the side.

When Mikey's skin began to have a blue tinge Frank decided that it was time to stop before he accidentally murdered him.

"Mikey!" Frank hissed, shaking his slumping form. No response.

Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw the demon rise.

"Stay where you are." Frank commanded. Or _hoped_ that he managed to actually command it anyway.

The demon - Moria, her name was, assuming that Frank actually managed to summon the correct demon at least - paused for a short moment and stared at Frank as if weighing him up.

The sight of Frank crouching on the floor and somehow failing a task as simple as waking up a person was not a good first impression. Nor did it demonstrate Frank's power or the notion he was to be feared.

Moria let out a quiet snort.

Mikey's eyes twitched a few times and then opened fully. He looked on impassively at the stranger in his bedroom and sighed.

"I'll go and get Gerard..."

"Might not be the best plan," Frank had time to state before Mikey disappeared through the door.

It was at this point that Frank realized another flaw in his plan: he had trapped himself in a salt circle with a potentially dangerous demon.

Moria took a step towards him.

_Right_. Frank swallowed. She'd disobeyed and should be beginning to feel at least some pain. But why was she still grinning if that was the case? Her eyes were just as manic as her smile but not manic in such a way that suggested anxiety or unease - manic in a way that reveled in chaos.

"Stop." Frank tried again. It wasn't as if there was anywhere for him to run.

She took another step forwards, this time with her finger outstretched towards him.

"No, stop..." Frank's eyes were wide and he was stood right at the edge of the circle. "Stop pointing at me."

She was so close that Frank would be able to count her individual eyelashes - not that he would want to at that moment. In that moment he was far too busy being terrified of her defiance of orders and whatever the fuck she was intending to do to him with that outstretched finger. Why wouldn't she stop pointing at him? Why was she still grinning?

Frank pegged it. Not that he could go very far, approximately the length of the room.

She followed and Frank waited until she was a couple of feet away, still holding her arm out rigidly before he tried to scoot past her again and make it back to the other side of the room.

Maybe if Frank managed to delay her for long enough with the weirdly similar scenario to a game of bulldog (only slightly more demonic and deadly), Gerard would rush in and somehow save the day.

It was a long shot.

Sadly, Frank's plans were foiled as she stepped out to the side without warning, grabbed his arm and pressed her finger to his forehead.

Suddenly, Frank couldn't remember what he'd been so afraid of. He didn't know why he could feel the residues of adrenaline inside of his system or who the girl was who was standing in front of him or why the fuck he was stood in a room that must belong to somebody with a really bad recurring slug problem.

"What's your name?" The girl asked.

"Frank." He replied and then blinked.

"Okay Frank," the girl said, smiling sweetly, "they'll be here soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not long left until the end now... Gotta say that this story has gone further than I expected, considering that I've basically been making it up as I went along (with the occasional moment of having a vague idea what would happen in the next chapter).
> 
> Also I might have been spelling exorcized wrong throughout the entire story because of a bit of a weird spell checker on the writing program I use. Whoops. And in that case I apologize. 
> 
> There's been a few clues in this chapter and the last. The first is Bill (I'm not sure how subtle I was about the whole Bill thing) and the second is in the name Moria and what just happened at the end of this chapter...


	12. Push All Demon Related Problems To The Back Of Your Mind And Hope For The Best

"Erm, who will?"

The girl rolled her eyes and the door crashed open, with a guy who looked terribly familiar bursting through it. Frank stared but couldn't quite place a name to the face. The letter G or J was coming to mind. Garry? Jerry? Frank couldn't shake the feeling that he really should have known the guy's name but was momentarily distracted by the guy rushing forwards and splashing water over the girls face. It was a bit weird, the scream of rage that the girl then omitted. Frank thought it was fair to be at least a little pissed - he would be too if some guy had thrown water in his face for no apparent reason.

"Gerard?" Frank blurted, surprising himself. He found himself questioning Gerard's sanity and had a strong sense of déjà vu.

"The book Mikey! Get the book!" Gerard squawked with his eyes wide and a lanky looking teenager darted into the room.

The girl's eyes visibly darkened and she stormed towards Gerard, arm outstretched whilst Mikey scrambled through the pages of a dusty novel.

Gerard threw more of the water on her and she unleashed a cry of fury. _Really_ , Frank thought, _you can't blame her_. There was no need for Gerard to be stood there looking like he was about to shit himself when he had provoked her in the first place - and then continued to provoke her. Just don't throw water on people, it's fucking rude. Although, looking at the bottle the liquid was contained in, it was possible that it wasn't just water after all. Maybe some sort of perfume. Frank hoped it wasn't expensive. What a waste.

She moved closer with her index finger pointed straight at Gerard accusingly. Gerard looked fucking terrified and Frank felt a certain level of satisfaction in that. He'd behaved like a dick and now she was calling him out on it. Frank watched with the eager anticipation of a pupil finding a school yard fight but was disappointed when all she did was poke Gerard in the forehead whilst he uselessly tried to throw the last few remaining drops and dodge at the same time. Frank didn't know what the fuck that was about but whatever she did seemed to resolve the whole being splashed with water issue. Gerard looked a little dazed and the terror had left his features.

"Gerard!" Mikey shouted, seizing the book and running over to his brother.

It was odd, Frank decided, that these facts would pop into his brain and yet he had no recollection of how he learned of them. He knew of the facts but he recalled no memory of events that had happened to him before five minutes ago. He must have hit his head really hard or something. In fact, a sense of unease had been slowly settling in and the more Frank looked at the girl the more that smile became one of a twisted and sinister nature. Something in his gut told him that he had to help Mikey. For what reason, he did not know but the feeling was strong enough that he held no doubts about it.

Then Mikey began to speak in a language that Frank did not understand, reading from the book and the girl advanced towards him with deliberation.

Frank knew he had to stop her. He had no idea why but gut instinct overruled his actions. So when her finger extended not to point at Mikey but like a weapon aimed at him, Frank leapt at her.

She stumbled a little but remained upright with Frank's arms around her neck and him clinging to her back like she was giving him a piggy-back. Fucking hell, the girl was stronger than she looked. She twisted and threw Frank off herself like he weighed nothing more than an insect and Frank landed in a heap on the floor.  
Mikey continued reading out the words in a rushed and frantic pace.

"I don't understand," Gerard mumbled in the background. "Where am I?"

It was enough to make Mikey falter for a couple of seconds and in those seconds, Frank grabbed the girl's legs (he knew her name, he knew it, it was at the tip of his tongue) and stopped her moving any closer to Mikey. It was odd; the more words Mikey read out the more pain the girl seemed to be in but what was stranger was that Frank could feel this pain too. It was building up inside of him and he knew that it had nothing to do with just having been thrown on the floor.

The urge to beg Mikey to stop prickled in his mind but he knew that Mikey had to finish or they'd be far worse consequences.

The girls head snapped to glare at Frank. Moria. That was her name. Sheer panic overtook when instead of continuing to head for Mikey she reached towards his forehead.

"Should have gone further back with you." She said and before Frank could attempt to begin to make sense of her words his reflexes overtook. Frank's hand was clutching her arm and her finger was millimeters away from making contact. So she did the sensible thing and used the other arm that didn't happen to have a person clutching it. Frank probably should have anticipated that move.

***

Frank was stunned to find himself lying facing the ceiling with his skin on fire and the sound of someone babbling away in a language he didn't understand. He looked down. No, his skin wasn't actually on fire but the burning was painful enough to make him cry out in pain. The voice continued. Frank stood up, desperate to find water or something to ease the pain and put out the nonexistent fire and was confronted with the scene of some girl poking some dorky looking guy in the forehead whilst he tried to hit her with a book and simultaneously rush some sort of speech, all the while there was some other nerdy looking guy who looked just as confused as Frank felt. Was that Latin the dorky looking guy was speaking in? Frank didn't have the chance to find out, the guy stopped as soon as the girl's finger came into contact with his skin.

 _Definitely weird_ , Frank decided as the girl winked in his direction and slipped into the wardrobe.

***

It took a further twenty minutes until the three of them established that they actually knew each other's names after all and they suspected they were suffering from some sort of mass concussion. This brought on a debate about how exactly that happened (Mikey wasted no time in informing them that it was probably Gerard's fault) and Frank brought up the fact that there was a girl hiding in the wardrobe. There was a loud sigh from inside the wardrobe and after them all receiving head pokes again (only with clothing used as blindfolds added this time) she retired back inside the wardrobe and left them to start over again.

***

One hour after reawakening with blindfolds on and no idea what happened, Gerard and Mikey could hardly believe that they momentarily forgot that the two of them had known each other their entire lives.

"So it's only our short term memory that's been affected then. Could have been worse." Mikey was saying.

"Not that short term, I don't think. I have no idea what month it is. Or anything that's happened recently." Gerard said, searching the room for a calendar.

Nausea rose inside of Frank's stomach. If they were beginning to regain some memories why wasn't he? They at least had some idea of their major life events so far, memories of growing up and who they were but Frank had nothing.

"Holy shit it's December!" Gerard clutched the calendar, shoving it in Mikey's face. Mikey's mouth hung open.

"Um. Shit this is bad. We should probably, you know, get checked out or something."

"But look at us all Mikey! None of us look injured! We all feel physically fine; don't you think that's weird?"

"Yes." Mikey said, nodding. "That's probably why we should get checked out. We have no idea what happened to us. We could all have brain damage or something..."

"I'm more concerned about who the fuck decided to blindfold us." Gerard stated.

"I'm concerned about that too but we're probably not in a fit state to think right now." Mikey replied.

"We could all have been captives for all we know, I think finding out what the fuck happened is more of a pressing matter." Gerard stated with determinism in his voice. "I think we should go all Scooby-Doo on this shit."

"Eh?" Frank had time to enunciate before Gerard elaborated.

"Search for clues I mean."

"I don't approve of this." Mikey said in a voice whose tone suggested that he'd already resigned to go along with it as long as he could moan about other things they should be doing the whole time.

"Look - we're all physically fine. You examined both of our heads yourself Mikey and found nothing."

"Yeah," Mikey said pointedly, "but I'm not a doctor. And memory loss is never a sign of being fine."

"Fine. We'll get checked out after then."

"You have half an hour." Mikey said, looking at his watch.

Frank decided that he might as well help; maybe he'd uncover some memories of his own too. He wasn't sure what they had to complain about, at least they had _something_. Gerard had begun examining the room already, with a slightly worrying excited glint in his eyes. Mikey knew that glint well and decided to remind Gerard that this was real life and not the beginning of a comic book plot.

"Do you normally have slug problems, Mikey?"

***

Well, Frank would have helped if he'd been able to. Except that for some reason he couldn't leave the room. There was nothing there to stop him, all he had to do was walk through the open door and yet it was like there was a barrier stopping him. He tried calling out to the other boys and they decided that it must be a psychological thing until they tried to drag him out of the room themselves but couldn't budge him. There was lots of huffing, scuffling of feet on the carpet and cursing all round but then Frank suddenly fell through like the barrier had suddenly disappeared. He took a few steps back and then out through the door again just to double check that it had gone for good. It had.

***

It was well over half an hour before they found anything that generated a plausible theory. Well, only one out of the three of them thought that the theory was plausible and as these things tend to be, he was the one that suggested the idea.

"Aliens?" Mikey cried. "You think some memory erasing aliens got us!"

Gerard made a shushing noise and handed over one of the many zines on his shelf. "Just read it. This has happened to people all over the world-"

"Don't pull this shit on me right now, Gee. Whoever puts together those zines has no grasp of reality. We need to leave. We have to get ourselves checked out and speak to the police about whoever did this to us."

"Like police will believe us..." Gerard muttered darkly.

"NOW!" Mikey shouted and a very weary looking girl marched into the room and slapped each of their heads.

***

They came to inside Gerard's room. Mikey felt quite an odd texture on his head, reached to touch it and pulled away a tin foil hat. He had no idea how it got on his head and to what purpose it served.

***

"No wonder they erased our memories," Gerard chattered excitedly, after they again reached the point of their epiphany when they (or rather just Gerard) concluded that they'd been adopted by aliens (only without Mikey being about to get the police involved this time), "if they'd let us keep them there's no guarantee that we'd keep quiet. It's kind of a cliché these days to have alien encounters anyway but still..." He sighed, voice full of awe. "Think of what we must have witnessed in order for them to take such extreme measures..."

"Still not completely buying your theory, Gerard." Mikey said, rolling his eyes.

Frank said nothing. Frank was more concerned that after Gerard and Mikey had regained most of their memory (minus the past who knew how many months) whilst he still had nothing.

"But it's what the evidence points to!" Gerard outbursted, positively vibrating with excitement. "The hats, the weird plastic, the zine article, the unexplained memory loss!"

"Yes," Mikey replied, voice dripping wet with sarcasm, "all that hard non-circumstantial evidence can only point us to that logical conclusion."

***

Finally, _finally_ , without knowing it they managed to last more than two hours without Moria having to wipe their short term memories for the umpteenth time. She took to the attic, finding herself a nice little cozy nest in their belongings along with a surprisingly decent record collection. It was comfortable there and she decided that she'd stay for as long as she pleased, after all, she had the ultimate tools to make people forget that she was ever there if she needed to. It was lucky that inside a house with two salt circles created specifically with the purpose of containing a demon inside, both of them happened to be broken and both incidentally by accident.

Some days Moria would stay inside and maybe draw a little or read and on other nights she would venture out and just have a good fucking time. On more than one occasion the cops disagreed with her definition of a good time and tried to arrest her for theft, trespassing and damage to public property but it was no trouble to make them forget that they'd ever seen her. The Ways blundering into the attic was a bit of a recurring nuisance but was easily set straight. Mr. Way in particular was finding that he often wondered upstairs to the attic only to forget why he went up there in the first place.

It took a bit of complex tinkering on Moria's part which she normally wouldn't have bothered with but since she believed that she stole Frank's nest (and he had inadvertently been very good to her in summoning her, accidentally freeing her and supplying her with a home) she decided to repay the favor and make Mr and Mrs. Way believe that Frank had moved in with them over the past few months. Their recollection of it would be nothing specific but they wouldn't question Frank's presence in their home either. If she was being honest repaying an inadvertent debt had little to do with it; she was more curious about the case of a demon who thought he was human and the human who was such a great summoner but knew nothing of his powers.

Gerard was adamant that they must have been the victims of memory stealing alien technology whilst Mikey decided that Gerard must have put them all through such a traumatic ordeal that they must have repressed the memories of the past few months and Frank couldn't help but have the feeling that whatever happened, he was better off this way. Gerard and Frank were equally shocked to learn from Mrs. Way that they were boyfriends and had attempted a few of those boyfriend things that they thought were expected of them. It was neither good nor bad, just weird so they broke up without officially breaking up and decided to see where things would take them when they had time to get used to each other.

It was Mikey who thought that something was off about Frank and the small unexplainable events kept adding up. Like how Frank had such a bad allergy to a certain kind of salt that he couldn't even touch the stuff. Or those few times when he caught Frank scoffing raw beef. And the fact that Frank was the only one who had absolutely no memory of his past life made Mikey more than a little dubious. Still, it was surprising how easy it was for these things to simply slide over in his memory...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. The end. This is the first time I've ever actually completed something that didn't happen to be under a couple of thousand words. Think I've learned a lot from writing this, like how my sentences have a tendency to be quite long and difficult read and how I should be more certain about characterization (Frank was a bit all over the place at times). 
> 
> So. Yeah. Thoughts and comments are of course very welcome.
> 
> Edit: I've also got a non-fanfic short version of this on my wordpress blog Stories of the Odd which is my creative writing blog that contains my original pieces


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